


Scenes from a marriage

by wearemany



Category: Panic At The Disco
Genre: Cheating, Dog(s), Drugged Sex, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Religious Conflict, Sexual Experimentation, Sexual Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-30
Updated: 2008-09-30
Packaged: 2017-10-17 06:35:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearemany/pseuds/wearemany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Mormons really shouldn't get you hot," Brendon says. "Whatever, me obviously not included."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scenes from a marriage

"Mormons really shouldn't get you hot," Brendon says. "Whatever, me obviously not included." They're hanging out in their living room watching Big Love on DVD because Brendon says it makes him remember his family could have been so much worse.

Shane's not sure that's a valid argument, but it doesn't matter, because they're both pretty drunk. And high. "He's got three wives," Shane points out. "It's supposed to be hot?"

It  _is_  strangely sexy, for a show about a cult. Bill is fucking as many of his wives as he can, and the son and his non-Mormon girlfriend are going at it like rabbits. Just when Shane sort of idly notices he's half-hard, Brendon throws his head back against the couch and moans.

"I'm so fucking horny," Brendon whines. He bitches for a while about how it's too bad he wasn't in this kind of family, maybe the whole religion thing would have stuck. But mostly, he's just fucking horny, and annoyed, and way too stoned to go out and do something about it. Or so he says.

"Your room's not that far away," Shane points out, because he doesn't feel like moving and if Brendon starts jerking off on the couch again he's gonna have to get up and leave. The couch is pretty disgusting already.

But once Brendon starts talking, he won't stop. "Okay, not just when you're high, but especially when you're high, sex is sooo much better when someone else is getting you off, and why is that, why isn't it better with yourself when you're like, the expert on your own orgasms?" He shakes his head and says, "But it's just not," and Shane is nodding agreeably. He’s pretty baked himself. He's wondering if maybe they should order something to eat or if there's anything he could just put in the microwave.

And then Brendon says, "C'mon, I'll do you if you do me."

Shane would think he'd heard wrong but Brendon has that look on his face -- not his I'm-about-to-get-laid-look, which is a comical mess, but the one where he's had some happy accidental discovery that thrills him, like he found an old swingset back behind a truck stop, or some dumb local food that sounds disgusting actually turns out to be so good you can't believe they've kept it a secret from the rest of the world. Brendon has  _that_  look on his face, and he's staring at Shane, and then he's scooting over the like six inches between them and unbuckling Shane's belt.

And somehow he manages to do that and get his own pants open at the same time, and the thing is -- Brendon has this way of making the craziest idea sound like it makes sense. Brendon's pulling Shane's cock out of his pants, and squeezing it a little, and acting like that's a perfectly reasonable thing to do at this point in the evening, and fuck, it -- it feels _good_. Of course it feels good, it always feels better when it's someone else.

So Shane does the same. It's not rocket science, it's just a hand job, he thinks, before that makes him freak out a little bit, so he mentally revises it to think, it's just helping each other out.

Of course Shane's seen Brendon's cock a million times. Brendon would be as happy living on a nudist colony as in some sex-crazed polygamist cult. Shane even bumped up against it once with his leg, coming blind around a corner at way-too-fucking-early in the morning. It was hot and heavy against the outside of his thigh, just a flash before Shane staggered back and Brendon laughed loud and braying and threw his arms around Shane's neck, hips safely back a half-step from Shane's boxers as he begged and pleaded for someone, anyone to make a pot of coffee.

Now it's in Shane's hand, still hot, not quite as heavy, almost weightless the way it drifts up, like it's asking to be held, to be stroked. Brendon presses his shoulders back into the couch as Shane jerks him off harder, whimpering a little, eyes closed, and Shane's never really seen Brendon like this. He's just enjoying it, just feeling it, and he's making these noises that are not -- okay, Shane's heard Brendon jerk off before, and he's even heard him fucking before, but not up close like this. Somehow this is entirely different. Shane wants to hear more. He wants to know what noises he can make come out of Brendon's throat.

He barely even cares that Brendon's hand has stopped moving on his cock, that there's really only one of them now doing this, and one being done to. Brendon's hips stutter off the couch, and he rolls his neck and turns to look at Shane. He smiles, broad and sunny, and grips Shane's other arm a little, remembering belatedly to jerk Shane off for a few strokes before he loses track again.

Brendon gasps and comes over Shane's hands, and his eyes flutter closed for a second and then there's just a wet, heavy silence in their living room, an echo of hard, humid breathing. Brendon's hand is loose around Shane's cock. Shane's not sure if he should pull his own hand away, or say something, or do something, so instead he just leans his cheek against the couch and tries to breathe deep and even.

After a while Brendon says, "Shit, sorry, I'm usually better at ---" and he waves a hand around, blinking slow and confused. Shane thinks,  _multitasking_ , and Brendon says, "doing more than one thing at a time, fuck."

Shane can't help it, he laughs, and while he's moving he takes his hand away, wiping it off on Brendon's shirt as he shifts to sit sideways. Brendon's hand falls away from Shane's cock and onto his thigh.

The problem is now Shane really is hard, and horny, and his breathing's steady but his heart is pounding, and he's not sure how to ask for Brendon to do this, to finish it. Shane's not even a guy who stays in the room when dudes are jerking off to porn. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just not his thing. But Brendon's palm is warm on his hip, half on his bare stomach, half on his jeans, and Shane just  _wants_.

Brendon takes a deep breath and shakes out his neck and says, "Okay," like someone asked a question. "Let me --" he says, "like this," and slides to his knees, tugging Shane's legs around and settling between them on the floor.

Shane is about to say something stupid like “you don't have to,” but then Brendon does, and Shane's not  _that_  stupid.

Brendon is pretty good at giving a blowjob, which honestly isn’t something Shane has spent one second wondering before. Everybody jokes about it, sure, about Brendon and Ryan or how the whole band is a bunch of pretty boy fags. But Shane's seen Brendon with girls, seen him turn this exact kind of hard focus on them when he's looking to get laid. Sometimes, once or twice, it was with a guy, but Shane had never thought it actually went anywhere. He's not sure now why he was so sure Brendon didn't mean it.

Brendon's not a pornstar or anything, but he's loose limbed in that way Shane knows means he's kind of fucked up still. Shane closes his eyes for a while, fucked up himself, and tries to imagine it's Regan or that stacked chick who works at Starbucks who wears shiny, bright wet pink lipstick, because a mouth is a mouth, right?

Then there's a hard suck and a thumb pressed behind his balls and his eyes fly open. When the sharp red stars flooding his vision clear, there's Brendon on his knees, grinning up with his lips stretched around Shane's cock. His eyes are amused, then comically widen when he realizes Shane's watching. Then of course it's the Brendon show, the performance of a lifetime for best blowjob ever, hands and mouth a blur of motion and a moan that Shane thinks might not be entirely fake, and it's all too many things to think about, too much to drink, too  _much_. Shane feels his hips buck up before he can stop them. He hears Brendon choke a little and then he's coming, hard, and Brendon is laughing a little as he swallows and licks up what he missed.

Shane just sits there for a minute, transfixed by a shiny smudge at the crease of Brendon's mouth he sort of wants to touch with his fingers or maybe his lips. Then Brendon pushes up to his feet and shoves himself the rest of the way into his jeans but doesn't button them. He stretches out his neck, cracks his jaw and says, "Man, I am going to crash so fucking hard now."

"Yeah," Shane says weakly, surprised by his own voice, because it's not the kind of thing you say "thank you" to but he’s still biting back the words. When Brendon's in the hallway to their bedrooms, Shane calls, "g'night," and Brendon tosses "you too" over his shoulder as he disappears.

++

Shane is wandering through the house, thinking about the location he checked out that day, recalculating angles of natural light. He's got a hand out to open the freezer when he registers that it's already ajar, that Brendon is staring blankly into the shelves.

“Shit, sorry,” Shane says, and Brendon spins around. The refrigerator is big, sleek and silver, with drawers and cubbyholes that all fold open and closed in the most logical possible fashion, like they're on a space station. Shane helped pick it out, or at least stood there and mocked Brendon for spending six thousand dollars on an appliance just because it could crush ice in twelve ways.

“We're out of ice cream,” Brendon whines, and Shane replies, “No, we're not,” out of habit, because he knows Brendon is only talking about the fancy triple espresso chocolate shit he buys at the gourmet grocery store, binges on, and then forgets to replace. There are three other flavors visible over Brendon's shoulder, and Shane tries to shove an arm past him to prove his point.

Brendon just backs up further into the freezer, blocking Shane like he's standing guard, one shoulder jutted against the lip of the fridge door, one arm draped up and tucked into the back of the icemaker. “What's the magic password?” he taunts, waggling his eyebrows.

Shane kisses him. It was  _exactly_  that planned out, and as Brendon's mouth opens under his, wet and so warm in contrast to the chilled air wafting around them -- it's a really good fridge, Shane thinks distantly -- he remembers, punch to the gut, what that mouth felt like around his cock.

In the three days since, Shane hasn't avoided thinking about it, not exactly, he's just had shit to do other than lounge around dwelling on how Brendon's lips are so full and soft and strong all at once. He's been busy, and maybe kind of stupid, because Brendon grips the front of Shane's t-shirt and presses their hips together and bites lightly at Shane's jaw before zeroing back in on his mouth. Shane may have started this kiss but he's fairly sure he has nothing to do with what it's become, their tongues tangling, shallow breaths that never seem to fill his lungs enough before the next assault, the smooth, hard pressure of what can only be Brendon's dick against Shane's thigh.

Brendon pulls away on a gasp, fingers unfurling from Shane's shirt and digging lightly into his chest. “We have to --“ Brendon starts, and Shane mumbles, “yeah,” because they should stop, this is insane.

“My ass is turning into an ice cube,” Brendon says, and nudges Shane back a few steps until he can get clear and swing the door shut. He grins lopsided at Shane and settles his shoulderblades back against the smooth stainless steel, thumbs tucked into the waist of his jeans.

His face is open and amused and expectant but his mouth looks used, lips flushed cherry red. Shane takes another step back. “I, uh,” Shane says, and spots his keys on the kitchen island. He reaches out and the metal digs sharply into his palm. “I have to go,” he says.

++

Shane sleeps until two the next day.

He drove around for a while the night before, dug a pack of Camels out of the glove box and chainsmoked while cruising the Strip with the radio blaring like some tourist douchebag. Then he went to Regan's, fucked her on the living room floor because her roommate was gone, and picked a fight afterwards until she got up and went to bed without him. It was just too hot at her place, an old building with lousy AC that meant even on a cool night her skin was warm to the touch.

When he got home the house was quiet, and in the early afternoon when he wakes it's even quieter. He opens his bedroom door and pauses for a second, holding his breath and listening to nothing, nothing at all. He takes a shower and smears his hand across the mirror and looks at himself, trying not to think of it like a scene from a movie. It's just his life, his same old life.

When he's finally dressed and definitely hungry he wanders out, but he ends up walking right past the fridge. He doesn't want to sit on the couch, either. This is probably why people say you shouldn't ever hook up with your roommate. He's only ever lived with guys, so it never occurred to him to care one way or the other. He stands and stares out at the backyard for a while, stomach rumbling, and finally pulls his phone out to text Brendon. After another ten minutes all he's got in the message window is  _hey_. He hits send, turns around sharply, walks back to the kitchen, grabs a burrito out of the freezer, nukes it for two minutes and eats it in three big bites.

His phone buzzes, jumping across the butcher block island.  _makin' music, breakin' hearts_ , Brendon says, which means he's at Ryan's.

Shane's throat itches and he turns around to open the fridge. They have one beer, maybe half a glass of milk and a carton of fruit punch with a sticky pink river crusted on the side. Their food selection is similarly impressive. He grabs the Corona and types with one thumb as he elbows the door closed.  _dinner?_

Thirty seconds later:  _pick you up at 8 we can get wings?_

Shane doesn't know what to respond that's not a joke he would have found funnier last week, so he just says yeah and goes to find a bottle opener.

++

Brendon has a disproportional love for this sports bar a mile from their house. It's crowded when they get there, basketball on half the monitors and some celebrity golf tournament on the rest. They end up sitting at the bar, eating wings and splitting a pizza. They have three $2 beers each.

Brendon flirts lazily and in equal measure with their waitress, who is short, blonde and busty, and with the bartender, who is short and dark haired with a lip ring and tattoos on his knuckles that eventually Shane pieces together spell WORTH IT. Was it, Shane wants to ask, and what was it, exactly, that was so worth it? He doesn't, though. Brendon rambles about the song Ryan's been working on and a movie some DJ was talking about on the radio, which either stars Jessica Alba or maybe Summer from The OC. "Rachel Bilson," Shane offers, but otherwise doesn't talk much beyond uh-huhs and yeahs.

When the bill comes they argue over whose turn it is until both the waitress and the bartender are laughing at them. Brendon slaps his credit card into the guy's hand and Shane mumbles, "Fine, whatever, we have to get groceries on the way home anyway."

"'Kay," Brendon says, snapping a straw between his teeth, and when the bartender hands back the receipt he winks and says, "Have a good night, you two."

At Safeway Shane puts two cases of beer in the cart, Corona for Brendon and Stella for himself. Brendon doesn't offer to help, just trails along behind, humming and occasionally reading out the names of funny sounding products. Shane stops in the freezer aisle and Brendon steps on his heels, head craned to look at some cooler stacked high on a shelf.

"Ice cream," Shane says, and points. Brendon's face lights up and he actually claps his hands together like he's in glee club. He says, "Yay," and opens the freezer door, rifling through pints until he finds one he likes. He tosses it at Shane and roots around some more, bending over to reach something. His thin t-shirt rides up his back and his jeans slide lower, exposing three or four inches of pale, bare back. Shane feels his face flush.

Brendon turns his head around to ask if Shane wants something in particular and Shane shakes his head. "You know I don't really like ice cream," he says, and jams his hands in his pockets. "And it's fucking cold in here, hurry up." Shane walks away, goes down to the frozen fried things section and picks out three different kinds of eggrolls.

The clerk grins, indulgent, when Brendon playfully shoves Shane, then hooks his chin over Shane's shoulder as he inputs his PIN. "Now I know all your secrets," he whispers in Shane's ear, body pressed hot against Shane's back, and  _this_  is what Brendon's like when he's actually trying to flirt. Shane knows, he's seen the difference.

He wants to say something dramatic like, “You already do,” but his life’s still not a shitty script, so he just hits the green button twice and tells the kid they don’t need help out, thanks.

In the car they talk about how Ryan’s dog has been eating all his shoes, but only the plastic parts, the rubber soles or an occasional flip-flop. “Not into leather, apparently,” Brendon says, and then half-heartedly wonders aloud whether letting Dylan socialize with that kind of influence could turn her vegan, too. Shane laughs but doesn’t have a good answer for that, or for anything else.

As soon as they walk in the door, he tears into the box of beer. His plan for the evening is to get shit-faced, or at least drunk enough that he doesn’t spend any more time worrying a) whether this is the biggest mistake he's ever made and he and Brendon are going to continue to pretend it never happened, or b) just what it would take for things to happen again, maybe this time in a way that involves both kissing and getting off. There's probably a reason those usually go together.

Brendon calls out from the living room. "We getting high?"

"Yeah," Shane says, grabbing another bottle for him and two for Brendon. "You wanna watch that dog grooming show?"

When he comes around the corner he sees Brendon, sprawled on the couch, packing a bowl. He looks up with a sunny smile. "You know how to treat me right."

Shane doesn't know what to say to that, so he turns on the TV, finishes off a beer and takes the pipe when Brendon holds it out, scooting closer on the couch until they're sitting side by side. At the first commercial break Shane leans back some, puts his arm high up on the couch.

"This is what I'm talking about," Brendon says, though they haven't been talking about anything except a dumb running commentary on the dogs and the groomers. "This is why I hate going out."

"No you don't." He doesn't. Brendon likes it, the clubs, the parties, the photos, the girls who shamelessly rub their nearly naked bodies up against him.

"Yeah," Brendon agrees, "but sometimes it's nice just to stay home with all --" He gestures vaguely at the bag of weed on the coffee table, the nest of empties, their enormous flat screen. The movement turns his body closer to Shane as he finishes, "all this."

"Yeah," Shane says, and his voice sounds soft and distant. Brendon's only an inch or two away, somehow, and his eyes flutter down.  _He's staring at my mouth,_  Shane realizes, and that too is from afar, fuzzy and obvious at the same time.

He hears Brendon say, "This way we --" and then the rest gets lost in the kissing, Brendon's mouth pressed lightly to his, a whoosh of air as they both breathe out hard before going back in again.

Shane tries to lift his head up but as soon as he moves his elbow he's sliding back instead, pulling at the last minute on Brendon's shirt to bring him down too.

Brendon groans something like the word "aww," but it's not sweet and amused, it's excited. Motivated, Shane's brain sleepily provides. "Fuck yeah," Brendon mutters, tugging Shane's legs down so they're flat and Brendon can lie on top with his knees nudging Shane's apart. It's -- it's a lot, suddenly, a lot of touching, a lot of weight for such a skinny fucking kid Shane's picked up and carried over his shoulder more than once. It's not too much but only barely, and Shane still cranes his neck up to catch another kiss.

Brendon holds himself up a little, chests apart, until Shane slides his hand around Brendon's waist and his shirt pulls up. Then Brendon crashes down, their whole bodies colliding, and Shane gasps at the hard press of Brendon's cock against his own. Brendon pulls back from the kiss and stares down, mouth open and shocked, like maybe he had no idea it would feel like that either. Brendon's  _cock_ , Shane thinks again, and even in his head the word could be subtitled for all it makes sense. He's been avoiding it, maybe, avoiding the reality of Brendon and his cock.

"Fuck, you're really --" Brendon says, and blinks slowly, so Shane just says, "yeah," and shoves his hand down between them, yanking Brendon's pants open and trying to pull them down around his ass. Brendon laughs, low and pleased, and unbuttons Shane's jeans, wriggling around until they're almost bare from mid-chest to mid-thigh, shirts pushed up and denim hanging at their knees. Shane's chin touches his chest as he stares at Brendon's cock climbing out the top of his bright green underwear, and then he watches his own hand reach out and tug the elastic over Brendon's ass. Brendon's fingers tease at the waist of Shane's boxers until he lifts up an inch and Brendon can get them down.

This time Shane pulls Brendon down, slowly, gently watching as their skin touches in a thousand places. They both groan, grunting as their cocks slide dry and rough against each other, and Brendon licks his palm, giggling as he does. Shane laughs with him because this, this is so fucking ridiculous, what they're doing, what they're trying to do, skin and spit and stoned out of their minds.

It's fucking amazing. Brendon smiles back, wide and brilliant and beautiful, and rolls his hips against Shane's, licking at the corner of Shane's mouth. Shane's jaw is hanging open, breath lost at the sensation.

 _Breathless_ , Shane thinks, and lets Brendon set the pace, following along as they chase each other in circles, sharp points of give and take until all he can see are starbursts of color behind his eyes.

++

There's fabric pressed to his lips, and his ass is cold.

Eventually Shane wakes up enough to realize his face is smashed into the couch cushion and his pants are down around his ankles. He rolls over and gets his feet on the ground, head and back aching no matter how hard he blinks. The house sounds empty. He pulls his jeans up. Everything is fuzzy and distant, filtered hazily.

It's not like he can't remember what happened, it's just that it all feels so far away, Brendon groaning and -- and begging, maybe, and just that thought makes heat rise across his neck. Shane can dimly remember his own name panted out as Brendon's short nails scratched against his ribs and, yeah, there are shallow skid-marks across his chest. "Fuck," he says, and the word falls flat in the room.

He dodges his reflection after showering but with a t-shirt half-pulled over his head tries out, "It's kind of a funny story, actually," and, "I don't know, it just happened," and, "I'm sorry, Reg, I'm an asshole." There's a part of him that wants to talk to her about it as soon as possible, to call her right now so they can laugh about how ridiculous it is that he and Brendon got stoned and fucked around on their living room couch like a couple of kids. Then there's the other part of him, the part that doesn't live in a stupid rom-com where -- actually, he can't think of a movie where that was okay, not a single one. And Regan can be a pretty intense individual when it comes to sharing, and that's just about shit like food in the refrigerator her roommate ate, not her boyfriend sleeping around. He's not sure how to tell even himself it was an accident or that he didn't see it coming this time.

When she comes out of her work, smiling in surprise to find him at the curb, he tries to grin back but is pretty sure he fucks that up, too. It's not until he's pulling into her apartment complex parking lot, feeling her heavy stare as he continues to silently rehearse his stupid apology that he realizes just how much he can't tell her, not at all. He's an asshole, and he was stoned, and who the fuck knows what else, but Brendon -- Brendon is gay, Brendon is _gay_  and he's the lead singer in a band with a million 14-year-old fans and his family is Mormon, for fuck's sake, and Shane can't make that situation even worse by running around and telling people they fucked around. Not even his girlfriend.

"What?" she says, and he shakes his head.

They eat dinner and watch TV for a while and she says twice how sweet it was that he just missed her so much he had to come get her like that. She says it like she doesn't believe it. He slouches into the cushions until it's just after nine o'clock and then says he's not feeling well, he's maybe coming down with some kind of stomach thing, he'll call her tomorrow.

When he pulls into their empty driveway, he finally lets himself check his phone.

 _forgot dumb interview today back later_ , Brendon had texted mid-morning.

Thirty minutes after that:  _my head feels like a hackeysack. yrs?_

 _did u know that we are huge in belgium?_

 _you are alive right?_

 _going w ross to look at guitars, pedals, cords, hats ETC. send proof of life and/or superior genes that offer immunity to hangovers. use carrier pigeon or telegram if phone broken._

Then a long gap, all late afternoon and evening while Shane was wondering if every conversation with Regan would get worse and worse. It's never been awkward between them, not since the first day he saw her and tried to ask for the time or her number and she laughed in his face, but she was so pretty he asked again. Everything since that has been easy.

His phone beeps while he's still holding it, deliberating.  _on my way home soon, bringing the bacon. you want a double cheeseburger and fries with that?_

Shane writes,  _plus mcflurry?_

Brendon comes in with both arms full of grease-stained paper bags and they decide to eat in the backyard, lounge chairs side by side on the half-dead grass. Shane thinks maybe this is when they're going to talk about it, when Brendon is going to say,  _hey, sorry I wasn't there when you woke up naked this morning_ , or  _hey, wow, awkward, right?_  Or maybe, _hey, want to try that again?_

With a burp and a groan Brendon pushes to his feet, squinting down at Shane. "Beer?" Brendon suggests. "Weed? Both?" He knocks his knuckles against Shane's hair.

"I think I need to stop drinking so much," Shane says, and he means,  _maybe we should talk about what we do when we're drunk_ , but Brendon just smiles, concern in his eyes, and brushes his thumb against Shane's cheek.

"Okay," he says, "no more milkshakes after sundown for you!"

++

Two beers in, Shane switches to Mountain Dew. He takes one hit off Brendon's pipe and waves away the rest. He sits in the corner of the couch and watches Brendon watch cartoons, eyebrows jumping up and down in delight, knee bouncing as he picks at the fraying fabric of the cushions. The next night it's Will Smith movies on DVD and the one after that it's pizza and video games, but otherwise everything goes essentially the same. They touch each other a little, maybe for a little longer than before, but it doesn't go further than his arm laid across Brendon's shoulder for a minute or Brendon briefly twining his ankle around Shane's as he tries to wrestle the remote away.

He stays basically sober for three days, watching Brendon and waiting for something he can't name or define. He keeps telling Regan he'll see her tomorrow, tells his folks he'll be over on the weekend, lets his phone go to voicemail. They meet Ryan and Spencer for lunch one day, play minigolf with Brendon's nephew for two hours in the afternoon on another. He's not totally sure what he's doing. It feels like a break, a little one, while he gets his head together. It feels easy, and normal, the kind of thing he could get used to. He's already used to it.

Wednesday he climbs out of bed and into the shower and is still buttoning his jeans when he makes it to the kitchen in search of coffee. Brendon's on the phone, making loopy notes on the edge of a take-out menu. "Uh-huh," he says, "yeah, I'll ask." He caps the Sharpie and tosses it at Shane, leaning against the fridge. "Yeah, so email the itinerary and I'll let you know."

As soon as Brendon hangs up, Shane grinds the beans and starts the coffeemaker. Brendon says, "Eggs?" and Shane nods, and it's not until they're both sitting at the table that he remembers to ask about the call.

"So how about," Brendon says, instead of actually answering, "you come with us to this basketball thing?"

"Yeah, sure," Shane says, but then frowns. The Rebels are already out of March Madness. He finishes his cup of coffee and stares at Brendon, who's always so weirdly nonchalant about shit like this. Finally he asks, "What basketball thing?"

++

Walking across the tarmac at McCarran, it really hits him. He's got one camera bag slung across his chest, the other with his video stuff on his back. There's a clean t-shirt stuffed into a side pocket and a pack of Crest gum in another. "Sorry we're not actually going to be there long enough to see a game," Brendon had said, like a paid gig on a private jet to Atlanta to shoot a rock band at a huge outdoor concert wouldn't be reason enough for Shane to go.

They're not even off the ground before the drinking starts. Brendon and Ryan beg off after one cocktail each, Brendon rubbing his throat regretfully, but Jon and Spencer seem to be locked in a battle to the death of beards and booze and bullshit. Shane nurses a soda and alternates between shooting stills and video, getting adjusted to being on a job even if it is with Brendon and three other guys he knows pretty well. Everyone's excited, amped up, eager to play again.

The band hasn't gone a month without a gig since they made the record, let alone three, Ryan tells him quietly, leaning in to talk like they're telling secrets. Brendon's listening to something on his computer, toe tapping impatiently. Jon and Spencer are making Zack and Dan judge a drinking game only they seem to know the rules to. Ryan gives Shane an almost shy smile, like they've just met. It's different seeing them all like this, just them, this tiny circle of guys who trust each other with everything but almost in place of trusting anyone else at all.

Shane feels flattered to be let in, or even just let near, because he also doesn't kid himself he really belongs, that he's on any kind of equal footing. Being in the right place at the right time to catch an hour of rehearsal on tape doesn't make him a part of the band. He's never filmed them live or been on their tour bus. He brings up the camera again and snaps a shot of Brendon, watching through the viewfinder with his finger hovering above the button as Brendon makes Ryan put on the headphones to hear a song. Their foreheads brush as they hum along, smiling at the same lyric and then smiling more when they catch each other at it. Shane puts the camera down and stares out the window for a while.

Finally he switches to video and takes the drink Jon's been trying to press into his hand the last hour. He tries not to film Brendon more than the other guys. Once they hit the ground it's a blur of highway and Atlanta and then the venue, sound checks and signings and standing around and waiting for other people to their job so Panic can get ready to do theirs.

Shane films all of it, still not sure what they'll really want at the end. Zack talking to fans. Spencer spending a small eternity fiddling with his snare drum, tightening and loosening the same three screws. Brendon petting the polished piano and calling it "baby," riffing on Amy Grant and pledging his undying love. Ryan wandering around in his crazy yellow scarf, tilting his head sideways and rambling about banjo players from the Delta.

They've got one last check of lights and sound to go when Shane hears Zack's laugh, guffawing loud, and when he follows Zack's pointed finger with the camera he sees a boy standing with a group of fans, holding [a sign that says BRENDON TURNED ME GAY](http://www.patdonline.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=171&pos=1). Brendon squeaks, bouncing a little and clapping his hands in delight, and Shane braces his elbow against his chest to get a steady shot. It's hard when his hands are shaking.

At dinner somebody brings it up again, Jon idly wondering aloud what kind of prize Brendon should get if they can find proof he turned at least ten of their fans gay.

"But what kind of proof?" Spencer argues, and they go on like that for a while. Shane watches Brendon eat all his own fries and start picking Shane's off his plate, smiling faintly but not meeting Shane's eyes. He doesn't seem freaked out by the conversation but at this point he's mostly letting Jon and Spencer run the table, constructing ever more elaborate tests so Brendon can win whatever it is they decide is a suitably gay award. Shane tries to finish his drink but his throat is so tight it's hard to swallow. He takes photos of the wreckage of their meal and ignores how Brendon's knee is jiggling under the table. He could put his hand down and stop the movement, but he won't.

In the dressing room, Brendon says, "Fuck, I look Mormon tonight," and Spencer laughs into Ryan's shoulder, wry and bemused. Brendon tugs at his tie, then pulls it tight again. He smooths his hand down the white shirt and shrugs at Shane in the mirror. "Sometimes the clothes do not make the man," he says seriously, and doesn't crack until after Jon snorts. Ryan flops down on his back on the couch, stretching his long legs down and around Spencer's shoulders. Shane adjusts his light meter. He's here for a reason, after all.

As the stage lights flicker, Shane turns around in the pit, shooting out into the audience. There's a row of teenage girls, fifteen years old, maybe sixteen, lined up all along the barricade, and the same skinny boy with the sign from the soundcheck squeezed in at the end. Shane spins back around just in time to catch the band walking on stage, and after that it's all he can do to keep things in focus and in frame.

He saw Panic play before, once, on the Vegas stop of their last tour. It was before they lived together, when they were just guys who emailed each other and hung out sometimes if Brendon had a day or two off. Shane had felt like a total fucking tool asking if Brendon might be able to get them in, but Regan had really wanted to go, had put the album in her car CD changer the first time Shane mentioned meeting Brendon and never taken it out. Brendon said he'd leave two tickets at will call but when they got there they had VIP passes and were seated with everybody's families. That was the first time he met Brendon's parents and he'd spent the night watching them flinch every time Brendon said the word _fuck_.

The show is so different up close, Brendon's feet at eye level as he skips across the stage, sweat flying off his forehead in a rainbow arc over Shane's head. It's amazing, overwhelming even, to be sandwiched between Brendon's manic performance and the screaming crowd. The kids scream the whole time, but louder at some things than others.

Brendon slides his hand down his tie and cups his crotch; they scream.

Brendon dances away from them, towards Spencer's drum kit, and shakes his ass the tiniest bit; they scream.

Ryan stalks Brendon until they're pressed nose to nose, sharing a microphone, and Brendon follows him back, tugging on his shirt and grinning wide; the fans scream and cry and clutch each other.

Brendon's lip quirks at the response and as he thrusts his hips into Ryan's guitar it almost looks like he's straining to hear it again, waiting for more. Between songs Brendon gulps a bottle of water in one long swallow, throat bobbing, and Shane remembers belatedly to shoot Jon, to capture Spencer's arms blurring through a bridge. He's not going to be able to show the footage of this night to anyone until he's had a chance to even it out in editing.

Midway through the set, he fumbles his way out of the pit and backstage, a guy in a headset taking one look at his camera and badge and waving him through. He takes stills the rest of the show from the side with Zack, who's standing with his arms crossed, waiting for something to go wrong.

They come off stage in a mess of instruments and roadies and sweaty towels, and Brendon grabs Shane by the sleeve, hugs him so tight Shane is sure the sweat is soaking through his own clothes, too. "Now you've seen the seedy underbelly of the rock and roll lifestyle," Brendon says, tipping his forehead to Shane's for a fleeting second. "I wanted you to," he says, words rushed and breathless, "to see what it's like inside." Then he laughs loud and maniacally. "Inside the  _beast_ ," he cackles like the voiceover for a horror movie. He squeezes Shane's shoulders tightly and pushes off, jogging over to some assistant, making his stupid charade signs for  _more water_.

Shane wanders out from under the overhang, following Spencer and Jon and Ryan as they go to watch the fireworks. The light is pretty amazing, red and orange explosions across the darkened sky. He's reaching around to swap cameras again when Brendon bounds up, stripped to the waist. "Take  _my_  picture, Shane," he pleads, spinning around and raising his hands up. "Make me a star!"

Shane shoots a few, Brendon staring right into the camera as he pouts and pulls faces, and tries to ignore the hysterical thumping in his veins. This is just how Brendon is around this many people, big and loud and demanding.

"Okay," Brendon says, "my turn," and to his credit he doesn't actually grab the camera from Shane's hands, just holds his out until Shane gives it to him. Shane videos the other guys engrossed in fireworks and hopes like hell whatever is wrong with him isn't showing on his face.

When the display is over he looks around and can tell the crowd's changed, fewer corporate sponsors, more fangirls. Brendon rises up on his toes a few times, almost hopping in slow motion, obviously tired. He grabs Zack by the sleeve. "Car?" he asks hopefully. "Airport? Home?"

Zack says, "Yep," sending Dan to go find the others at the bar. He walks them to the dressing room to grab their stuff and then out to the van, always a half-step ahead. Shane sticks to the back, at Brendon's elbow, until they're safely delivered into the parking lot. Brendon climbs into the back bench seat and Shane follows him. Zack looks around. It's quiet, only a couple other trucks and vans where they are, and finally he says, right to Shane, "Don't go anywhere." Shane nods and Zack closes the door with a gentle touch.

Brendon's got his head bent back over the seat, mouth open, almost snoring. When Shane does the same, Brendon rolls his neck to one side and smiles a little until it widens into a yawn. Shane yawns back. "Right?" Brendon says, almost a whisper, as if that makes sense.

It does, though, kind of, and he says "yeah, right" back, and then Brendon leans forward a few inches and they're kissing. It's not really like either time on the couch, or even standing at the freezer, because it's obviously not going anywhere. But they both know that much, at least, and Shane is surprised to find he's not nervous, not at all. Maybe a little relieved, actually, as Brendon's tongue touches his and darts away.

This whole day has been about Brendon and his band, Brendon in this other world where everything revolves around him and what he wants or needs or is supposed to do at any given moment and this -- this is different, the two of them in a quiet car at midnight. This feels real. Brendon plays with the edges of Shane's hair where it peeks out of his hat. He bites Brendon's lip and Brendon moans, loud when everything else has been so hushed.

They're waiting for other people, Shane remembers, and pulls back.

"I wonder where," he starts, and Brendon shrugs, says, "They're close, probably."

Shane gives him a little space, presses his shoulders back against the seat and tries to slow his breathing.

"We'll be home soon," Brendon says, and brushes his knuckles against Shane's jeans. When everyone else climbs into the van they all sit farther up, and Brendon's body is warm against Shane's all the way to the airport.

++

After that everything happens so fast, not just in actual time but in how much  _happens_. He can't walk by Brendon without wanting to kiss him, and once he does, he can't figure out how to stop. From there it's always a blur, like they've just barely started making out and suddenly Brendon's hands are shoved inside Shane's jeans, his mouth pressed hot and damp into Shane's neck as he jerks him off. "You're so," Brendon says once, "this is so fucking good, I don't even --" and Shane doesn't know, either, doesn't get how Brendon feels that about him, how he feels it too.

Shane ends up on his knees one afternoon, the kitchen floor hard beneath him, and he's so fucking desperate to get his lips around Brendon's cock that it's not until he  _has_  that he remembers he's never done this before. He pulls back, breathing hard, and Brendon whines a little, unsteady on his feet. His cock isn't huge but it's right in Shane's face, red and wet from Shane's mouth, and there's a voice somewhere in his brain that's just repeating  _what the fuck, what the fuck_  but every nerve in his body is saying  _do it do it do it_.

So he does, he wraps a hand around the base and brings Brendon back to his lips and goes down, Brendon's grateful moan more than enough noise to drown out any remaining questions. He listens to Brendon's noises, his pleased grunts and desperate gasps, and tries to shut up the rest of his brain, to follow the sounds like a map that will explain what the fuck he's doing, how this works. Just when his neck is starting to ache from the angle, Brendon is squeezing his shoulder and pulling back. Shane thumbs over the head of Brendon's cock and catches the come in his palm. That part's not new but it feels different at eye level, feels like more of an accomplishment.

Brendon folds to the floor, hands on Shane's cheek and greedy kisses buried against his collarbone. They fall backwards and Brendon sucks him off like he's starving for it, hands wandering the curve of Shane's ass and pulling him up, letting Shane fuck his face. That breaks through the haze a bit, the possibility of what else they could be doing on the kitchen floor, on the couch, in a bed. They could do  _anything_ , Shane thinks, and then he's coming deep down Brendon's throat.

Brendon slides up the linoleum, fitting himself under Shane's shoulder and sprawling half across his chest, and tilts his head back for a wet, salty kiss that makes Shane wish he'd swallowed, too. They stay like that a while, heartbeats slowing, until the dog in the house behind theirs starts barking like a banshee and Dylan trots out to investigate, snarling and breathing heavy against the glass doors until they fog up in a little circle a foot high.

"C'mere," Brendon says in his special Dylan voice, and rolls onto his his back, waggling his fingers until she brushes her head into them. She wanders over to her bowl and Brendon cranes his head back to follow her progress, then scrunches up his nose. "Fuck, when is the last time someone swept this floor?"

"You don't sweep," Shane says, licking his lips. He could really use a beer but the fridge, while technically only a few feet away, seems entirely out of reach.

"Do you sweep?"

Shane laughs. "You were the one who said we only needed a housekeeper once a month, dude." Brendon runs his fingers up the back of Shane's neck and into his hair. He tucks his nose into Shane's armpit and his low laugh whispers down Shane's side.

"I didn't know I'd be spending this kind of quality time down here," Brendon says.

"Well," Shane starts, because, well.

Brendon shrugs, his bony shoulder rising and falling on Shane's chest. "Maybe we should try every other week."

 _Maybe we should try the bed,_  Shane thinks, but, well. "Lunch?" he asks, and Brendon counters with, "Showers. Sandwiches?" Subs, they decide.

++

Brendon goes up to a cabin to write the new record and Shane spends three days completely confused about what to do with his time. Then he gets hired on to a commercial shoot, makes a promo video for the Wynn, agrees to DP his friend Jack's thesis film when the other guy drops out at the last minute. He works twelve, fourteen, sixteen-hour days and falls into bed sore and tired from carrying equipment around, from going out drinking with people he's known since high school or just met on the shoot.

A couple nights a week he wakes up to text messages from Brendon, the phone rattling across his nightstand at three or four in the morning. 

 _everything smells like pine trees up here very fresh & clean feeling_, one says. 

 _last night did shrooms listened to peter & the wolf overandover. ross would smoke bark if he could figure out how to get high off it._

 __And then: _miss the dog miss the house miss having your camera in my face all the time. come document the mess/masterpiece for posterity?_

Shane falls back asleep with the phone in his hand. Over coffee he makes two follow-up calls about potential jobs, neither of which starts till the next week. He eats the last of the cereal and watches half a baseball game. In the early afternoon he dials Brendon's number, pressing the send button before he can overthink it any more. Brendon picks up on the second ring and says, "Are you on your way?" Shane smiles at the empty house and goes to pack a bag.

++

The car is half full, Dylan in her carrier in the backseat, three bags of groceries fulfilling everyone in the band's obscure addictions unable to be purchased at resort convenience stores, and two of Brendon's hoodies he forgot and apparently can't live without.

"They're in my room," Brendon had said, "somewhere," but it took Shane twenty minutes to find them, twenty minutes of digging through Brendon's t-shirts, of holding armfuls of soft cotton that smelled like Brendon's deodorant and fabric softener. He sat for a while on Brendon's bed, sheets neatly tucked in because Brendon always reverts to his good son habits on his way out of town.

When they moved in, Brendon said, "No, you take the master bedroom, I probably won't be here half the time anyway," and claimed one of the two smaller rooms for himself. The third is accumulated crap, guitars and keyboards and some lighting equipment Shane's dad gave him when he traded up. Brendon's room has a bed, and a closet full of clothes, and a Louis Vuitton trunk full of shoes. There are more shoes all over the floor, and more clothes, and Shane sat there for a while, looking at all of it like he was trying to block a scene, until he finally found the hoodie he'd been looking for.

Shane has just made the turn onto Kyle Canyon when his phone rings, caller ID unknown. But reception up on Mt. Charleston sucks, so it's probably just Brendon calling from the house phone, hoping he's not too late to have Shane pick up more beer.

"Hi Shane," Regan says. Fuck. They were supposed to have dinner soon. Was that tonight? Probably, from the way she said his name.

"Hey Regs," he says. He might as well jump in. "I know, dinner, I'm really sorry."

"Fuck you," she says, and he's so surprised he gooses the gas pedal, the engine a sharp roar under her voice as she bitches for a while about how he's never home, he never calls her any more, they've been doing this a long time but it's not the same when she's the only one who seems to give a fuck if they keep trying at all.

During a long, stretched out silence he says, "I know," because he's pretty sure there are things he should be saying, things boyfriends say at moments like this to get themselves out of the dog house, to make sure when they get home their girlfriend still lets them in the house, for starters, and that they can still get laid.

He can't actually remember, he realizes, the last time he and Regan had sex. He's seen her a couple times in the last week or two, both late nights when she called and he was already out drinking with someone and so she met them there. Late enough that he pretty much passed out as soon as they got to her place, and then he was up and out for work early.

"So who is it?" she says, barely even asking.

It's been twelve days since he had sex with Brendon, since the morning right before Brendon left for the cabin, when he climbed into Shane's shower and jerked him off, like it was something they'd done before, a quickie before some time apart.

But he can't tell her that. He can't tell her any of it, not any more than he could have when it was just one stoned hook-up.

"It's not like that," he says, and she tells him to go fuck himself again and hangs up. He throws the phone on the passenger seat and cranks up the stereo.

He drove this road a lot a couple winters ago, back when he was hanging out with Dustin and his ski bum friends, shooting crap-ass videos of kids boarding and biting it in equal measure. It was all fake snow but the sky was always blue and the drive from Vegas wasn't bad. If he didn't wait around for the other guys he'd call Regan from the road and they'd talk all the way back. He can't remember what they talked about, or why he couldn't wait to hear her voice until he got home.

In the dead of summer Dustin would skate at a concrete half-pipe Summerlin had built in a park to keep kids off drugs, and last year Shane hauled his new DV equipment out to shoot an audition tape so Dustin could get on an Xtreme Games reality show. Brendon had been fucking around like a douchebag, never trying anything hard enough to risk breaking his face, and when Shane had needed a third hand to hold a reflector, Brendon dropped his board and offered to help. Brendon was stuck back at his parents' house between tours, bored and annoyed, and they'd hung out a dozen times before he left again, matinees and stoned bowling and trips to the mall. It made Shane feel eighteen again. It made Brendon feel normal.

The phone rings again. "Maybe we should take a break," Regan says, and Shane doesn't say, _isn't that what we've been doing?_  because he doesn't know when he stopped thinking things were only going to get more serious with her. He can't pinpoint when that ended. He doesn't think it has anything to do with Brendon but he isn't sure.

So he says, "Yeah, I think we should," and this time she says goodbye first.

He gets a little lost trying to find the right cabin, half-hidden private roads all twined together like branches, and by the time he pulls up behind Ryan's Mercedes he's feeling sort of dizzy, head crackling with tension.

Jon is on the porch smoking a cigarette, which he stubs out carefully on his shoe. "Only you can prevent forest fires," he says in greeting, and gives Shane a back-slapping hug. They manage to carry everything into the house in one trip, and Shane spins a bit, staring up at the vaulted beams, breathing in the sharp pine scent that permeates everything.

"Nice place to disappear, isn't it," he hears from above him, Ryan's dry fondness echoing in the large room. Hobo skitters into the room and she and Dylan sniff each other in a circle.

"It's beautiful," Shane says, almost surprised how deeply he means it, and blinks when Brendon appears at Ryan's shoulder at the top of the stairs. His chest is tight, and he imagines his lungs like a oxygen bag dropped mid-flight, squeezed empty from the pressure. Brendon smiles sunnily and waves before bounding down the stairs and wrapping himself around Shane. Shane has to curl one arm around him just to stay upright.

"Come see the rest of the house," Brendon says, already tugging Shane by the arm through a long hallway. He hears Jon and Ryan laughing low, talking about dinner, and then Brendon's got him shoved into a tiny wood-paneled room, the door pulled tight behind them, and he's pushing his hands up under Shane's shirt and kissing him like he's desperate for it. He's grown a dark scruff and it scratches, pricks of pain soothed by sloppy wet kisses. Shane tries and fails to catch his breath in the brief moments Brendon relinquishes his mouth. When Brendon pushes up Shane's t-shirt to bite at his chest, Shane's ragged gasps sound like thunder in the small space.

Brendon works his fingers into Shane's pants, yanking down the zipper, and Shane is still playing catch-up, apparently, because after that Brendon undoes his own, too, licking his palm and jerking their dicks together rough and fast. Shane braces his palms against the wooden walls, which only makes things spin slightly less. He'd worry about moaning or screaming every time Brendon twists his wrist like that except he can barely get enough oxygen to breathe at all. He comes first, head knocked into the wall and a heel kicked against the door, and Brendon grunts, "Fuck, Shane, twelve fucking days," and comes too.

He doesn't mean to close his eyes but everything goes black and muffled for a minute or two, or maybe just a few seconds. He feels warm fingers prodding at his cheeks, knuckles laid across his forehead, and when he swims back up to full awareness Brendon says, "Jesus fuck. Shane, are you okay?"

He's sitting on a wooden shelf that juts out from the wall, Brendon hunched down in front of him.

"I think you actually passed out," Brendon says, and pushes Shane's hair behind his ears. "Fuck, man, you kinda scared me."

"Sorry," Shane mumbles, and tries to visualize himself sitting up straight and unassisted. It almost works. He wants suddenly to tell Brendon that Regan broke up with him but that seems even more impossible than finding his balance.

"Altitude's a bitch," Brendon says, sounding less worried. "You have to train for this kind of vigorous workout."

"You didn't --" Shane starts, and then has a minor coughing fit. When he's finished he says, "You didn't really give me much of a chance to acclimate." Brendon's broad grin is reward enough for resuscitating his vocabulary.

"Practice, my friend," Brendon stage whispers.

++

They all stay up all night, playing poker at the big table in the main room. Jon wins $127 total, plus an IOU off Shane for another thirty bucks because he hadn't realized he needed to come loaded with cash to survive a game of hold 'em with the band. Brendon crashes on the couch around four a.m. and by the time the rest of them admit they're not winning anything back from Team Walker, as Jon refers to himself, Brendon is awake again. He wanders off to fool around on the piano a while, pointing Shane towards his bedroom to sleep.

Shane wakes up at two in the afternoon, sweaty and squinting. There's a lot of fucking light this far up the mountain, apparently, and it's all focused like a laser through the panes of Brendon's window. When he pokes his head into the hall there's no one around, so he digs through his bag and opens random doors until he finds a shower.

He almost pokes himself in the eye with a soapy finger when Brendon sticks his head in the door and sings his name in a sharp falsetto. "We were wondering where you were!" he says, as if Shane's the one who has been holed up in their undisclosed location of a practice room. Brendon leaves the door ajar and perches on the edge of the sink, yammering on about how Ryan is writing an amazing musical that is going to make their label freak the fuck out, about how last week they all dropped acid and watched Beatles movies, about how this is nothing like it was the last time they had to make an album.

Finally Shane has run out of things to wash, and he turns off the water. "Oh!" Brendon says. "I'll let you, you know." He slams the door on his way out, then opens it again a crack to say, "Sorry, it always falls shut really hard," and then he closes it carefully once more and disappears. Maybe Brendon has conversations with everyone in the shower. Maybe because he's always running around naked it doesn't occur to him that other people might take how he is in a different way, might assume this is the kind of thing people who spend time together naked do.

At whatever meal it is, Jon ladles extra soup into Shane's bowl and says, "I'll totally take the weird room tonight." There's an oblong single at the end of the hall, tucked under the triangular eaves. It has a low ceiling and a twin bed.

"No way," Shane argues, because he's not even really working. He's just up there for fun and the fact that they don't make him feel like the odd man out doesn't change the facts of it.

" _Way_ ," Jon says. "You're used to living with the little fucker anyway. I actually had a few months on my own and lost the skill of tuning out the way he talks in his sleep."

Brendon's glasses fog as he bends his neck over the steaming bowl. He slurps his soup and sings, "I hear the secrets that you keeeeep," and Shane tries to protest again but the deed, apparently, is done. That night there's more poker and more bullshit and at least seven bottles of red wine among them. They're talking about music but not playing it, and by this point Shane knows enough to know that could last for days, and he's still a few hours off the band's nocturnal clock. He passes out in Jon's musty sheets and wakes up to Brendon sucking him off, kneeling at the side of the bed, head half under the covers. His half-beard is scratchy on the inside of Shane's thighs but Shane kind of likes it, the contrast against how soft and wet his mouth is.

Brendon pulls off and chirps, "Good morning!"

Shane looks at the inky window. "Is it?" His voice is thick still and his vision feels blurry.

He gets a lopsided grin in return. "Does it matter?" Brendon arches his eyebrows and licks down Shane's hip, shoving the blanket off as he goes.

Shane supposes that it doesn't, and after Brendon's done and collapses on his back, legs still swinging over the edge of the mattress, Shane returns the favor.

++

The next day, or the next time he's awake -- Shane honestly isn't sure at this point what day of the week it is, and he can't find his cell charger so now his phone is dead, too -- things do not seem to be going so well. He wanders down after a cup of coffee and cereal and catches the tail end of Brendon bitching about the lyrics.

Spencer snaps, "What is this, 2005?" Brendon throws a sheaf of papers into the air with an angry snap of his wrist. Shane has his SLR hanging around his neck and the video camera in his hand but he just stands there, waiting to be seen, waiting to be given permission to even come into whatever is going on. Jon sort of looks like he feels the same.

Ryan has his back turned to the room but Shane can see how tightly he's gripping the neck of his guitar. "Then I don't know what the fucking point is," he says, turning slowly around, and his lips draw together when he sees Shane.

He looks slowly to Brendon, who's slumped against the wall with his arms crossed and his eyes closed, and back to Shane.

"Why aren't you filming," Ryan says with a sneer, and Shane flips the video camera on with his thumb, bringing it up to his shoulder before he can stop to think whether he should be agreeing. "That's what you're here for, isn't it? Or was there some other reason for your visit, perhaps. Tell me, Shane, are you here on business or pleasure?"

Ryan glowers like he can command the lens with sheer determination. No one else in the room moves for a minute, and then Spencer says, "Then we might as well do  _our_  fucking jobs too, right?" and only then does Brendon open his eyes and push off from the wall.

They run through three songs, and Shane's never heard them before but he's pretty sure the last one doesn't go at all as written. "So much for the magical mystery musical tour," Brendon mutters, and Shane's not sure the mic picked it up but he thinks Jon heard, too, maybe all of them. By the end Ryan is swinging his guitar around his head like a lasso, and as soon as Spencer stops drumming Ryan slams it into the ground, snarling when it bounces a little on the thin carpet.

Jon says, mildly, "Maybe you need to hit it against something sturdier," so Ryan tries the edge of an amp and then the wall, both of which work better.

When Ryan crumples to the floor like a baby who's cried himself out, Brendon says his name soft and gentle and folds down next to him. Shane turns off the camera and walks out.

Jon finds him about twenty minutes later, not that Shane was hiding or anything. He was sitting out by the driveway wondering if maybe he should just grab his shit and go. "We're done for the night," Jon says, and shrugs a cigarette out of a pack. "And, uh, welcome to the band. If you've been randomly reamed out by Ryan and he let you live to see him fall apart, you're officially one of us now."

Shane tries to laugh but it comes out weak and hurt. Jon holds out the pack and Shane takes one, lets him light it.

Jon takes a long drag and says on the exhale, "Come on, Ryan's got some crazy ritual planned. I don't know, a bonfire maybe, probably doing some obscure drug he had smuggled in. We've got just about anything you could smoke, snort or drink. There's this amazing shit from Maui Spence's been hoarding, or we've got a couple tabs of LSD left over from the other night. Fuck, Brendon even found some blow stashed in his guitar case, if you want."

Shane stands and holds up the camera instead of asking the question.

"Only if you want," Jon says.

++

Ryan pours five glasses of absinthe, having magically produced not only the bottle but an elaborate silver spoon and sugar cubes out of his sleeve or something. He also declares that they will drink the entire bottle before dawn. They all clink glasses and Ryan shyly asks Shane if he'll turn on the camera just long enough to burn the guitar alive. It looks beautiful through the viewfinder and Shane can feel the liquor sink under his skin, a buzzy glow that spreads down each of his arms. When Jon's phone rings it sounds like church bells, but not like a ringtone, like an actual huge set of bells being chimed right above their heads, in the middle of the darkened sky. He wanders off and Spencer comes to sit by Shane. The fire they'd made in the stone pit is down to embers.

Spencer bumps his shoulder against Shane's. A few yards away, Brendon takes a swig of absinthe straight from the bottle, then screws up his face and acts like he's going to spit it back in Ryan's face.

"I told you," Ryan says, "it's a refined drink for a refined man, you have to --" He stops, laughing as Brendon starts poking him in the ribs over and over again, Ryan lazily batting him away like a pesky cat.

"You know they never -- you know," Spencer says, with a slow jut of his chin.

Oh. Shane watches them a little closer and feels stupid for not having seriously considered it, especially after everything that's happened. Before he and Brendon started he hadn't thought much at all about whether Brendon was gay, not like that, not seriously. He'd always seemed to Shane to be generally open, equally interested and disinterested in guys or girls depending on his mood. Mostly he'd seemed too young for something serious, unsettled in a way that was nothing like how Jon and even Spencer were practically old married men, both happy for a spot of stability amid all the bullshit. And Ryan was -- well, Ryan was Ryan. If anything Shane had thought Ryan was the gay one, even after he met Keltie. He was so fussy and fey and quick to take offense.

Plus Brendon has a unique bond with each of the guys, obvious even if Shane hadn't been spending so much time staring at them through a lens. Jon and Brendon will walk with their arms around each others' waists, heads tilted together, whispering to each other. Spencer's eyes soften when Brendon has finally crashed from some fit of hyperactivity, and Brendon always seems to catch him at it, to look up and share a smile that's half-apology, half-shrugged  _what else would you expect from me_. What Brendon and Ryan have always struck Shane as deeper than that, more difficult somehow, but not altogether different.

"People always think," Spencer goes on, "you know, because of the show or whatever. Or how they are, I guess. People assume."

Shane swallows. "I didn't," he says. He probably should have.

"Well, yeah. I'm sure Brendon told you."

Shane reaches for a stick and pokes the fire until it roars alive. In the orange glow he can see Spencer staring into the flames. Shane stands up. "You want a drink or something?" he asks, and Spencer says, "nah," still fixated.

The green fizz from the absinthe has faded and half Shane's body feels frozen, the other half overheated. Brendon cackles, Ryan's lower laugh beneath it, and Shane says Brendon's name sharp and loud before he's even realized his mouth is open. Brendon bounces up like a jack in the box and Shane says, "Come inside for a second," and Brendon says, "Yeah, okay."

Brendon follows Shane up the stairs, closing the door behind him as they go into their room. "Yeah, okay," Brendon says again, just as casually enthusiastic, and Shane says, "So Jon said you're using your guitar case to hold your coke."

"Oh God, please don't say that around Zack, I swear it was a mistake and you know he's so fucking serious about that kind of thing, but --"

"Where's the case?"

"Oh, it's -- hang on," Brendon says, and ducks back out. Shane isn't really sure what the fuck he's doing but he takes off his hat and scarf and jacket anyway, turns on one lamp on the nightstand. He doesn't want to go back outside, and he doesn't want anything else to drink, and he doesn't want to be a fifth wheel any more.

Regan hates it -- hated it, he guesses, is more correct at this point -- when Shane and Brendon did a few bumps before going out to a club. They saved it for boys' nights out. It was such a cliche, she said, but Shane would rather be a cliche than feel like this.

Brendon comes back in, dangling the mini-Ziplock, and it's worse than a cliche. It's almost a joke. Shane just says, "Good," and waits for Brendon to do the honors.

Brendon looks around the room, messy with clothes and random crap, magazines and half-eaten bags of chips. "You know," he says, contemplative. "I am supposedly a rock star and yet I have never done blow off a stripper's ass. Not  _once_."

"Fuck you," Shane says, and sounds madder than he means. That's the kind of joke this should be. Brendon's funny, or would be if Shane wasn't residually pissed off and unamused. He points. "There's a perfectly good dresser right there," he says, and Brendon rolls his eyes.

"You are no fun at all, Shane Valdez."

There's a rolled-up hundred in the bag, too, Brendon's longstanding insurance policy that is always either carried forward to the next batch or invested in immediate reinforcements. "Which would you rather," he explained once, and it seemed sensible even later, dead sober. "Run out halfway through the party or resort to using a five for the second round?"

Brendon carves the pile into neat halves, then snorts his side, sniffling and swallowing noisily. That's familiar in its own way, too, all part of the ridiculous ritual. "I'm a phlegmy guy," he said the first time, elbow to elbow in a bathroom stall like a couple of Swingers assholes.

Shane splits his jumbo-sized line in two and lets the burn drip down the back of his throat. The faint hum of drunkenness disappears in a clean wipe. He settles his weight on the edge of the dresser and lets his legs fall open in a V.

"Oh, now you want to have fun," Brendon says. When he's on coke he talks even more than usual, one long monologue about nothing at all, the same as every other conversation they have but on fast-forward. He does come closer, though, standing between Shane's knees and tilting forward for a kiss. He tastes like licorice, and if he's babbling the whole time it's not like Shane's unaccustomed to tuning him out. It's not like they weren't going to do this, the way things have been going and their own room now to boot. Even after getting schooled in the art of war by a band full of passive-aggresive pretty boys Shane knew this is where they would end up.

"Shut up for a minute," he says, and pushes down on Brendon's shoulder with one hand, and when Brendon smirks on his way down Shane feels anger race down his spine, neck and neck with lust. Brendon unbuttons Shane's jeans, nosing his way across Shane's cock where it already feels scorching hot against the cool cotton of his boxers, and Shane juts his crotch forward until he can feel the head of his dick drag across Brendon's mouth, stopping for one blissful second the stream of words.

Then Brendon starts mumbling again, filthy nonsense about fucking and sucking and licking and how much he enjoys all of the above, how amazing it is that they can do this whenever they want, how fucking hot Shane is, he has no idea. Shane lets the words drift up to him and finally unscrews his own jaw enough to talk back.

"You're wearing too much," he says, because Brendon's still got on a hoodie and a baseball shirt. He winds his fingers into Brendon's hair, tugging up until Brendon gets his feet under him.

Shane strips both Brendon's layers off and his jeans too, then turns Brendon around and walks him back towards the bed, helping tip the balance when Brendon starts to fall. He bounces a few times from the momentum and Shane yanks his own shirt off, kicks away his shoes and his jeans and leaves his boxers in a puddle on the rug. Brendon's lips are moving now but without sound, like a kid reading to himself.

Shane says, "Turn over," and Brendon twists halfway at the waist before he stops and thinks about it.

"Why, what are we, are we going to --"

"I'm gonna do a line off your ass," Shane says, and for a change he's able to get through the deadpan delivery without cracking. "Now turn the fuck over."

It's even easier to do than it was to say, and Shane's happy to blame all that and the sarcasm on the coke. He barely waits for Brendon to reposition himself before he climbs on top of Brendon's back. Brendon makes a soft grunt but doesn't struggle, turning his face and quickly getting distracted rubbing his cheek against the comforter. Shane's just settled his weight when Brendon starts shimmying around, twitching from his forehead down to his toes. Shane presses a hand down hard on his lower back and Brendon doesn't still so much as seem to focus really hard on pushing his hips into the mattress.

Shane lays himself like a blanket across Brendon, and like this it's so clear they're not the same size at all. It's obvious every time Shane snags a hoodie off the back of the couch and can barely fit an arm in it, but it's even more ridiculous when Brendon's whole body fits beneath his, Shane's arms draping over on either side.

Brendon's skin is warm, and he's sweating a lot, so when Shane tries to shift around and get a little more balanced his dick drags smoothly across Brendon's hip. "Oh fuck," Brendon sputters out, like he's reinvented English all over again, and Shane rocks his hips again, slower this time, working a knee between Brendon's legs. It's better this way, this angle. Shane can feel his heartbeat pounding through his cock, his fingertips throbbing against Brendon's ribs.

He looks down between their bodies, the swell of Brendon's ass curving against Shane's stomach. They could fuck like this, actually fuck. He could spread Brendon's legs farther apart, tilt his pelvis up and push in. He feels good right now, he feels like not actually knowing how to fuck a guy isn't any real obstacle. He could figure it out.

"Fuck," Brendon says more loudly, "keep fucking moving, Shane, come on," and Shane thrusts forward, reaching down to shove the tip of his cock between Brendon's ass cheeks and, fuck, that feels good, it's like fucking a girl's tits but better. Brendon squeezes his thighs tighter and bucks into the mattress, flailing an arm back to scrabble at Shane's shoulder as he pants out, "hand, your hand, Shane, fuck, help."

Shane can almost touch his knees to the bed on either side of Brendon's hips and he lifts up just enough to fit his palm across Brendon's stomach and around his cock, knuckles pressed into the comforter as he tries to make some kind of awkward rhythm between his wrist and Brendon's cock and Brendon's ass and the skidding friction of Shane's cock against it.

Brendon comes wet and hot in Shane's hand and Shane hears himself say, "Oh, that'll work better." He carefully slips his hand free and uses the mess to slick himself up, then guides his cock down to slide along the crack of Brendon's ass. He's thrusting roughly, sharp, shallow jabs and a small pool of sweat at the base of Brendon's spine drips down over his dick, too, allowing it to push farther between, to fleetingly expose Brendon's shiny pink asshole before Brendon whips his head around and says, "Are you -- don't try to fuck me, dude, that's --"

"No, what the --" Shane says, as if he hadn't been raising his thumb to his mouth to lick at it so he could try getting at least that much in. He doesn't really know what he's doing and for all this, for all they've done Shane's not really sure if Brendon does either.

"Fuck, I'm not even high any more," Brendon says, "don't try that," and Shane says, "No, no, I wasn't." Brendon's neck flops back down, forehead to the bed, and he lets out a long, annoyed sigh.

Shane won't but he wants to, wants to even more now that the cocaine fever has ebbed and it almost feels like something they'd do anyway, something they'd have gotten around to someday soon. Something they could just want and try and figure out together, just like all the rest of it.

It feels  _real_ , the soft, almost clammy pale skin of Brendon's ass under Shane's hands, the bony ridge of Brendon's back as he arches a half-inch and then sinks back into the mattress.

Shane needs to come  _now_ , can feel the ache in his balls as he kneels back so he can grip his cock and pull hard two, three times and then he's coming so hard. His hand opens wide, and he shoots between his knuckles and onto Brendon, shiny streaks like lash marks across his spine. Brendon shivers and says, through a giggle, "Now I've got some lines you can do."

Shane says, "Shut the fuck up," and slaps Brendon's ass lightly. But he cranes his neck in for a curious lick, and it's not that different from swallowing at the end of a blowjob. Not good enough to get off on, so he tugs a corner of the sheet out and uses that to clean them both off instead.

They lie side by side on their backs, staring up at the wooden ceiling and waiting for the rest of their sweat to dry. "Do you have a pack of cigarettes?" Brendon asks, and hums Simon and Garfunkel as Shane reaches around on the floor for his shirt. "We've all come to look for America," Brendon sings, stretching out the vowels while Shane locates the lighter and someone else's Parliaments and they smoke in the dim room until the sun starts to come up again.

++

Shane opens his eyes and he's about an inch from Brendon's mouth. Every low, purring snore as Brendon breathes in and out flutters against Shane's face. It's calm, like standing on the edge of Lake Mead on a day with a faint breeze, even if mostly the room smells like stale smoke and sex. He shuts his eyes again, wondering if there's a stream near the cabin they could hike to, maybe not now if it's already practically night again. But maybe tomorrow. Brendon's breaths stay steady, timed as even as Spencer's metronome.

Shane should probably wake him up, should scoot down and suck Brendon off or at least start something, use his hand maybe. And it's not that he doesn't want to, that he isn't also itchy with the need to press their bare bodies together again. He's just sort of into this, this quiet, familiar kind of beginning to a day.

His eyes are still closed when Brendon's phone explodes with noise, the synthetic sounds so jarring Shane flinches hard. Brendon rolls smoothly onto his back, winking one eye and then the other before bursting loudly into Rihanna. After a few lines he shrugs at Shane and says, "What? She's totally hot." He sits up straight and bends over the edge of the bed. "Where is my fucking cell-a, cell-a, cell-a," he sings along, and then says, almost normally, "Hello?"

Shane wallows in the relative peace, letting his eyes linger on Brendon's back, tiny dark freckles dotting the pale skin.

"Oh!" Brendon says, "hey, hi." He twists around and his mouth is quirked up, kind of a smile, but his eyes have that rare awkward look he gets sometimes around overeager fans. Shane pushes himself up to sit against the headboard. "Uh, yeah," Brendon says, "hang on, he's right here." Brendon presses the cell into Shane's palm. "It's your dad. Did you lose your charger again?"

"What?" Shane says stupidly, and then says, "hey" into the phone before he means to. Brendon is already halfway across the room with a jolly wave, though he stops when he seems to remember he's naked, grabbing a towel off the floor to wrap around his waist as he steps into the hall. He pulls the door shut behind him and Shane realizes his dad's already talking, something about a job and a voicemail box being full and, "What?" Shane says again, but this time tries to pay attention to the answer.

++

Raising Arizona is playing on IFC in the background while Shane finishes cleaning the house. He hasn't been there much anyway, not before or after he came back from Mt. Charleston, but even with the housekeeper a month of general neglect has left the place feeling stale.

The fridge is restocked, two kinds of beer and five flavors of ice cream and enough Capri Suns to fuel an entire soccer league. Earlier he opened all the windows and the back door and now at least things smell a little less musty and a little more like cold desert air, sage and dirt. He did three loads of laundry, mostly jeans and t-shirts, and only when he was putting clean sheets back on his bed did he think how that might look, how eager or presumptuous.

  
They were pretty rank, though, after the last week of him tossing and turning through half the night. Brendon's still on graveyard shift and his texts at four a.m. are about stupid shit that shouldn't be so distracting to Shane, things like  _what's the difference between a raccoon and a possum? jon says equally dirty but if neither is peta-protected we might have to kill a bitch_  or  _got pine sap all over my pants is there anything that gets this shit off??_.

One night he said,  _we r out of all the good drugs and ryan's being a fucktard. don't youwish you were here?_ , and Shane slid his hand into his boxers and was gasping against his pillow before he realized he was still clutching the phone, thinking about how Brendon scrunches his eyebrows together while he's thumb-typing, about how his face goes slack just before he comes.

Now the sheets smell flowery from whatever fabric softener Brendon insists they buy because it's what his family always used, but it's not like he's going to get them dirty again in the hour before Brendon's due back. Brendon's got his own room, anyway, so maybe Shane is being a fucktard himself to think it matters in the slightest what his bed smells like.

Mostly he's looking forward to having a conversation with someone other than his dad and his dad's friends. They're all great guys and taught Shane basically everything he knows about being a filmmaker. But they still treat him like a kid without meaning to, always double-checking his set-ups or frowning slightly as he explains why he likes something they consider just a little too edgy or underexposed.

Plus he never again needs to have a serious talk with his dad about Regan that somehow, after two glasses of whiskey each, sitting side by side at a bar like they were drinking buddies, turned into a very carefully phrased reassurance that whatever artistic choices Shane made were valid and accepted. Shane wanted to argue the point except he wasn't entirely comfortable with what point exactly it was that they were arguing, and when his dad said, "And they should be paying you, if you're going to film them working on the album like that," Shane didn't disagree, just asked his advice how to structure the deal.

He's sitting down on the couch with a just opened beer, Nic Cage looming large on the flat screen. Mostly he's congratulating himself on being a grown-up with an actual career he loves and being able to afford half of a house that feels like a real home when Brendon walks in the door. Brendon snorts a laugh, drops his bag on the floor and says, "Son, you got a panty on your head." Shane finishes the line with him, head tipped back to follow Brendon's movement as he crosses the room.

"You're back," he says, and doesn't manage to sound at all as nonchalant as he'd intended.

Brendon does a U-turn around the end of the couch. "Home sweet home," he says with a broad smile. He puts one knee on the cushion, swings Shane's feet up and tugs Shane down by the waist of his jeans until he's lying flat on his back. Shane puts his beer on the floor just in time for Brendon to kiss him.

It's more of an attack than a kiss. About ten seconds in and Brendon's already got one hand shoved inside the waistband of Shane's jeans, fingers scratching through the hair just above his cock. Brendon's other hand worms its way under Shane's ass, propping him up at an angle until Shane wraps his leg around the back of Brendon's knee so nobody gets jabbed in the balls.

"Ug," Brendon says, and now his dick sort of slides along Shane's where it's creeping out the top of his jeans. Mostly, though, Brendon's cock is a hard line against Shane's inner thigh, and when Brendon shifts a few inches and he thrusts down instead of forward there's a warm, solid pressure against the crack of Shane's ass.

In the past week Shane has been thinking about this a lot, not just how things would be when Brendon came back, but what they would do, what  _exactly_  they would do. Shane hasn't thought this much and this stupidly about sex since he was still a virgin. He kind of is a virgin at this, though. He doesn't know what he wants; he wants everything; he wants Brendon and anything Brendon will do is fine; he wants to not want this so much because it makes no fucking sense, actually, that he wants it at all.

Before Brendon he never wanted this, never wanted to kiss a guy or jerk him off or go down on him, to pin his hips to a bed and fuck into him, to have his dick inside a guy's ass. He has friends who wondered about some of those things, a few who even admitted it, and he's spent the last year hanging out with a band that's made an art out of at least asking the question and acting interested in the answer. Shane wasn't that guy, or maybe he was just happy enough with what he could get with girls he never bothered looking any further.

Or maybe it's just Brendon. Brendon's forehead is shiny with sweat and his crotch is hot where it's nestled into the curve of Shane's ass. Shane's fingers have gotten twisted in Brendon's collar, and he loosens his grip to let them slide across Brendon's back. At the intersection of pants and t-shirt, Shane lets one wander up, under the cotton, and the other slide down over denim pockets.

Brendon's ass is round and firm, almost like palming a basketball, the way Shane's hand can fit across the arc of it. He squeezes a little, more like getting in a good grope than encouraging anything in particular, but Brendon moans open mouthed, dropping his forehead to Shane's shoulder. Shane pulls his knee up higher, until his calf almost brushes his own fingers curved around Brendon's ass and he bucks up. Brendon is light, not totally unlike having a girl on top of him, but Shane's never gotten this tangled up in someone's body before, not from this angle. He's a little surprised how bent in half he is already, so quickly.

Brendon's fingers fall out of Shane's underwear, which feels like a step back until he wraps them around the back of Shane's thigh, pinning it down until Shane's knee is digging into Brendon's back. Shane wants out of his pants altogether, wants Brendon to be bearing down on him without the interruption of thick layers of clothes. He wants off this fucking couch where he can barely open his legs wide enough for Brendon to fit between them.

He swallows, Brendon still rocking shallow against him with his face in Shane's neck, and licks his lips, looking for words. He never, ever wanted a guy to fuck him before he met Brendon. Two weeks ago he was ecstatic to be getting the best blowjobs of his life on a semi-regular basis and to find he was generally enthusiastic about trying it himself.

"Bed," he says, and his voice is so fucked, rough and needy, and he doesn't even fucking care. "Clothes," he adds, "fuck. Too many clothes."

Brendon pushes up, their chests separating as he holds himself above Shane. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah?"

Shane nods.

"Okay," Brendon says, and grins his asshole smile with just a hint of true excitement embedded at the edges. "Okay. Bed. Clothes. Fuck."

There's a moment when Shane manages to get to his feet, light-headed and dizzy though he's basically stone-cold sober, where he wants to take it all back, where he wants to say good night and run off to his clean sheets and shut the door and be alone and figure out what the fuck has happened to his normal life.

It's only like eight o'clock, though, and Brendon's lips are bitten and red and his shirt is stretched out from Shane pulling on it. It helps that Brendon looks a tiny bit confused, even though he's got his determined face on. Shane isn't sure at all why Brendon wants this, wants  _him_ , but they're in this now and he is sure as hell he doesn't want to stop.

He walks carefully to his bedroom, one foot in front of another like a drunk, and after the first few steps Brendon crowds close to him, a hand on his tailbone that makes the rest of the distance seem easy. The second he stops at the end of the bed, Brendon is tugging his shirt off and then Shane's, and when that's done they take their pants off, and then Brendon gently curls his fingers around Shane's waist.

"Lay down," he says, so Shane sits and then scoots back until he's in the middle of the bed. He lies back, adjusting a pillow under his neck. Brendon runs his hands through his hair, tugging at it as he laughs a little. "Holy shit," he says.

Shane doesn't want to wait for Brendon to figure how to ask, so he reaches over to the nightstand, digging in the drawer to find the stuff he bought last week. Of course then he's got a condom and a bottle of lube in his hand and no idea what to do with either. He drops them on the bedspread. Brendon shakes his body out like he's going to dive off the high board, a head to toe shimmy, and then in a rush clambers on top of Shane, their legs and arms all colliding, skin scorching everywhere it touches.

Fuck, they're really going to do this, Shane thinks, and wraps his leg back around Brendon's, then shifts so it's higher, up around Brendon's waist. They're basically where they left off back on the couch, but this time without clothes.

He kind of wishes he'd done something more than stand in the aisle at Walgreens and buy what seemed like the probably necessary supplies. He remembered to get lube, a pretty impressive victory given how fast he wanted to get out of there, like a scared kid expecting to get caught with a skin mag instead of a 27-year-old who's been having sex for like a decade. There are probably magazines just about this, or maybe even websites with actual advice and visual guides.

He figured out blowjobs just fine without printed directions, though, and now that they're naked it's pretty obvious exactly what's going to go where. The way Brendon's dick is leaking a little on Shane's thigh, rubbing softly in the crease of his hip there, it doesn't seem half as crazy an idea as it has in the past, the concept that you can actually have a dick up your ass and think it feels good. Shane can almost see how it might feel good.

Brendon is sucking shallow kisses on Shane's neck, one hand curved around his ribs and the other pushing Shane's thigh up against his chest. He starts inching that hand down, a slow awkward skid of skin until the tip of one finger brushes against Shane's asshole. Shane pushes up towards it and Brendon pushes back down to keep his balance and then, fuck, Shane can feel Brendon's finger inside of him, and then more of it, and then the rest of Brendon's hand wraps around his tailbone like maybe he's in all the way.

Brendon fucks him a little like that, his finger rocking in and out, and that plus the scrape of his nails on Shane's lower back and how Brendon is panting against his collarbone, staring down their stomachs, it's already almost too much. He reaches around until he finds the condom and fumbles to get it open with his teeth.

There's probably a better way to do that, too, but if he doesn't figure this out soon they're both going to get off like this, and Brendon's finger feels great but that's not the point of all this. Shane ducks his neck a little until his lips are pressed near Brendon's ear. "Put it on," he says, and Brendon's hips stutter forward, cock dragging wetly along Shane's leg.

Brendon sits back, finger slipping out as he moves far enough away to roll the condom on. Shane lowers his legs for a minute, knees spread wide on the bed. Brendon's hands are shaking a little, and Shane slides his hands down Brendon's thighs and back up again.

He squeezes lube into Brendon's palm, so much that it drips through Brendon's fingers onto Shane's stomach, cold and kind of sticky, and Shane really does not give a shit, he just wants to feel Brendon inside him. He grips Brendon's wrist and guides his hand down, smearing lube messily around his asshole, and then around Brendon's dick so to slick him up, too. This definitely seems like it will go better if everything's as wet as possible.

Then Shane rests his shoulders back onto the pillows, tilting his hips and bringing his knees up again. He presses one heel into Brendon's back until he shuffles forward the final few inches, and then Shane closes his eyes because that's Brendon's cock, that slippery pressure inching inside. It actually really fucking hurts, it's so much  _more_  than having a finger up his ass, and that makes perfect sense but obviously sense didn't really factor into this decision, because who  _ever_  would think this is a good idea, letting Brendon fuck him up the ass just like that, just like they have any idea what they're doing.

Brendon pauses, breathing in loud, fast gasps, and when Shane opens his eyes Brendon falls forward, smashing their mouths together. That shoves Brendon's cock in even further and Shane doesn't scream but only because he bites his tongue. It hurts way fucking worse than he was expecting, and for about three terrifying long seconds he almost asks Brendon to stop. Then a sharp streak of lust shoots up his spine, cutting through the pain or maybe adding to it somehow, and he arches his back and kicks at Brendon's ass so he'll come closer, so he'll just fucking  _move_.

Brendon moves, finally, short little jabs and then, fuck, slow deep ones in a smooth roll like maybe he actually has some experience in the fucking department. His stomach is rubbing against Shane's dick with every thrust, driving Shane crazy because it's not enough, it's not in the same fucking universe as enough. And then Brendon lifts Shane's leg up a little higher and fucks in again and Shane is coming, fuck, he didn't even realize he was close and he's _still_  coming, spurting all over his stomach and Brendon's chest as he pushes forward again.

"Fuck," Brendon says, looking down at Shane's dick like he's a little awed. "Fuck, that feels so good, you have no idea," he says, and speeds up. Shane lets his neck go slack.

His thighs are quivering and if Brendon wasn't holding them up and open they would fall back down. That'd be nice, actually, but Brendon isn't done. On the downward slope of his orgasm Shane can feel everything more distinctly, feel Brendon's cock from every angle, the head pressing somewhere deep, the shaft rubbing back and forth against parts of Shane's body he's never before been aware of even having.

It doesn't hurt, not like before, but it only leaves him wanting more of the high, more buildup so it's less of a surprise, so it lasts and lasts. Brendon groans and his shoulders shake, his knee slipping a bit on the bed. He falls flat on Shane's chest as he comes. "Jesus," Shane says, and it comes out in a wheeze. He's shaky and breathless and a little scared what happens next, like he's gotten the wind knocked out of him.

"Fuck, sorry, sorry," Brendon says, and then "sorry" again as he pulls out, both of them wincing at the slow, sore slide. He drops the condom somewhere on the floor and collapses on his back, shoulder still overlapping Shane's.

Shane flexes his foot, his legs aching, and chuckles. Sex is so fucking ridiculous. Dylan wanders in then, of course, yipping and then running away again. "Fuck," Shane says, "we didn't even close the fucking door."

Brendon turns his face into Shane's neck, pressing a wet kiss right where Shane's pulse is still skittering. "Dude, nobody lives here but us."

Shane smiles into Brendon's hair, laughing when Dylan barks. He can hear her nails clicking against the glass door. He sighs. "She needs to go out."

Brendon says, "Uhhhh," like he always does when he's trying to get out of something.

"It's cool, you just got back." Shane extricates his arm and absolutely does not wince when the gentle impact of his heels hitting carpet reverberates all the way up his vertebrae.

Brendon smushes his face into the pillow, blindly flapping a hand out. On his second try he manages to nick Shane's hip with a ragged nail. "Bring back drinks?" he asks, hoarsely. Shane would accuse him of vamping it up out of laziness but then Brendon props his chin on his hands and goes and bats his fucking eyes, too. Shane just doesn't have that kind of willpower.

"I'm not your butler," Shane says for the sake of it being said. When he comes back with a Corona Brendon's already asleep.

++

Basically, they fuck their brains out.

Shane keeps trying, even if only in his own head, his own voiceovers, to come up with a better way of saying it. That sounds too much like Brendon -- but it's true, and anything else reeks of trying to be polite, and there's nothing all that polite about what they're doing. Shane hasn't washed sheets this often since he was 15. And he's never in his life gone through this many condoms in two weeks. Three boxes. Three and a half, really, because they finished off one Brendon had in his bathroom cabinet.

It's not that they've stopped any other kind of fooling around so much as now it all always seems to end in the same place: back in bed, fucking. Shane isn't sure at first how that is going to work out, if he really wants it enough to always let Brendon be the one fucking him, or what either always wanting it or letting Brendon anyway means about him if he does. After the third or maybe fourth time they do it, he just asks, "Can I try?"

Brendon laughs high and nervous. But he also says, "It's only fair."

It goes a little more smoothly than Shane's first time, or at least it seems that way from Shane's side. Brendon is more flexible, it turns out, much more so than Shane would have predicted even having seen him climb all over Zack or walk on his hands when he's bored. He slings his feet over Shane's shoulders, ankles knocking against Shane's ears, and even bent in half with Shane fucking into him he swears it didn't hurt.

Shane's gotten used to a certain amount of bruising and strained muscles and bite marks he doesn't remember Brendon making but there they are in the acid glow of the bathroom bulbs. Some days he gets up and goes to a job and groans when he reaches to adjust a light. Then he remembers exactly why his back feels like he's been lifting hundred-pound weights for hours on end. Once it hits him he always feels ridiculous, like everyone around him can tell, or like he's been doing it wrong and that's what they'll notice instead.

He doesn't think they're doing it wrong.

++

Shane spends eight hours filming would-be contestants auditioning for a new variety show and gets back to find Brendon naked in bed, half asleep, a magazine under his cheek. When he hears Shane come in, Brendon turns onto his back and says, "Oh good, you're home, finally," and licks his palm, wrapping it around his dick and tugging lazily.

Shane helps, stripping off his clothes while trying to never be fully out of reach with Brendon's skin. It's like how it almost was at the cabin, only way, way better, Brendon's ass spread for him, hips jutting into the mattress as Shane presses inside. By the end Shane is sitting on his heels, Brendon thrusting back onto him and moaning like this is all he's been waiting for all day, for Shane to come home and fuck him harder than Shane's ever fucked someone.

Shane's never been with someone who likes it this much, who isn't afraid to say how much they like it, to whimper and beg and demand what he wants to make it even better. It's oddly reassuring, to be buried deep in Brendon's ass and have him still ask for more. It's the kind of thing Shane thinks of later, when he's getting up for a glass of water, or when he sees some girl bitching at her boyfriend in the car next to him at a stoplight. He doesn't know why he needs to reassure himself Brendon wants this, because if having someone's cock up your ass and liking it isn't proof enough, he's not sure what is.

After, Brendon grumbles and shoves the wet sheet down around their feet and they fall asleep like that. Shane wakes up starving, probably because he skipped dinner in lieu of sex, again. His pants are all too big on him now, like they were before he started getting a beer belly from not being twenty anymore and still trying to keep up with kids who are.

"Sorry, I was trying to be quiet," Brendon says, but when Shane turns over he's not there next to him, he's standing on the far side of the bed, buckling his belt. He waves his phone, bumping a button so the display lights up. The icy blue glow makes Brendon look like he has alien skin, gray and stretched over his head.

Shane blinks. "I'm really hungry," he says.

"Sorry," Brendon says again, and Shane sits up a bit. "I have to --" Brendon shoves the phone in his tiny pocket. "Spencer and Ryan are -- we still have to write more, you know. The album."

"Okay," Shane says, and slides back down onto the pillow. Brendon may have slept all day but Shane has to be back at nine for another round of America's most untalented. Maybe he'll just hit a buffet for a big breakfast.

Brendon is still gone when Shane leaves in the morning, and asleep again in bed when he comes home. They fuck. They sleep. Shane's stomach eternally growls at three a.m. in protest, and his abs are always sore.

Things go on like that, almost exactly like that. Shane works steadily, which is good for his bank balance but annoying when he knows Brendon is just sitting around and they could be having sex. Mostly Brendon seems to sleep a lot, which is weird because Brendon isn't a champion sleeper. Shane can remember dozens of times before they were sharing a bed when he got up for an early call and found Brendon still on the couch, chin propped in his hand, watching early morning cartoons. Now, when he's not sleeping they're having sex, or gearing up to have sex, or recovering and thinking about having sex again. And then every other night or so Shane hears Brendon leave sometime after midnight, and half the time he's not back when Shane's out the door again.

Ian calls while Shane is finishing up an idiotic shoot at the convention center, made only slightly bearable by the adorable dogs yipping at the products the company is shoving under their nose. It's one big concrete room and Ian's cell breaks up on every third word, but finally from "crash...couple of...fucking Colligan is  _insane_ " Shane figures it out. He hangs up and texts Ian where to find the spare key, to make himself at home, to drink whatever beer he can find.

He has a quick and vivid flashback of smoking Ian out for the first time, when the kid was 14 and they were at some other cousin's cabin on the Oregon coast. They sat in a dilapidated boathouse as Shane taught him how to inhale and chanted the word  _dilapidated_  over and over in a stoned loop. It was the only possible word to describe the place and yet completely fucking ridiculous vocabulary to have acquired somewhere along the way. Ian's a good kid.

Maybe not so much a kid now that he's in a serious band with a record contract and four brand new best friends he's going to see the world with. Shane's watched Brendon enough to both be jealous of the opportunity and glad he's got his own life where he makes his own decisions how he wants instead of getting one vote, at best, or none at all.

When he comes into the house there's a muffled electric wail from the spare room, but when he knocks on that door there's no answer. He opens it and a wave of smoke hits him in the face. Ian is sitting on the carpet, knees folded, playing one of Brendon's guitars. He looks up at Shane with a broad grin. "This guitar is amazing!" he shouts over his own noise, and Shane laughs, leaning against the wall. Ian rocks out a little more, rising up on his knees once before falling back with an easy laugh. He flips a switch and the ambient buzz shuts down. Probably ninety percent of Shane's memories of Ian are like this, a dorky kid grinning over a guitar in some room with the door shut.

"I'm so fucking proud of you," Shane says, and Ian bounds up for a hug.

"I didn't ask," he says, with a quick look at the guitar.

"It's cool," Shane says. He's never seen Brendon get touchy about trading instruments before, and it's not like Ian's some stranger off the street. He holds his breath for a minute, listening. The house is quiet, just the sound of Dylan running around a little in the kitchen. "He's not here?"

Ian shrugs. "He's the one who told me to call you, last night. He said everyone needs a place to hide out from their band sometimes."

Shane says, "When did you get into town?" and then, "wait, what? When did you talk to Brendon?"

"I ran into him at this party that Cash and Singer wanted to hit. Last night. I don't know, I think he was with Spencer."

"Yeah, they're writing."

Ian snorts a laugh into the back of his hand. "Man, we should try it like that. Body shots are totally inspirational, right?"

"Hey," Shane says, after too long. "You must be hungry."

They go out to a Mexican place for dinner and Ian tells Shane all about the band, some of which he's heard already from Brendon, but it's better coming from Ian. His little baby cousin, sitting there talking like an actual person. Shane's pretty stoked about them getting to hang out like this. Plus he asks Shane all about work, about shooting Panic but also the feature Shane's been trying to get financed, the shit he's been doing for day jobs.

They talk about Shane's dad's new car, and their cousin Jeanie who's pregnant again, and how Cash and Singer fight "like Grandma and Grandpa, for real," Ian says, "only instead of kissing and making up after bitching at each other all day they just play Halo and kill the shit out of things and get over it, I guess."

"Up in the mountains, Ryan and Spencer fought like they hated each other's guts," Shane says, and immediately feels like a traitor even though it's just Ian. Maybe  _because_  it's Ian, because he knows these guys in a whole other way than Shane does or some totally unrelated person might.

But Ian just shrugs. "Writing an album is brutal," he says. "I can't even imagine, I mean -- if doing the first one is this insane, I don't know what it must be like to sell that much and have to do it all again. I know that's what I should hope for, right? But it doesn't sound like fun."

Shane finishes the watery ends of his margarita and pushes his plate away. "Brendon is --" He stops. He doesn't know what Brendon is, or what they are, or what it is he wants to say to Ian, to ask him about. He remembers Ian in hand-me-down overalls crying over a broken plastic shovel.

"Everybody's waiting for them," Ian says. "Like somehow they didn't prove themselves already? It's pretty fucked up."

"Yeah." The mariachi band starts up again, warbly and melodramatic.

Brendon is -- depressed, maybe. Or just unhappy. Or confused. Shane's only confused when he tries to make a story out of it, to think how he would make a movie about two characters named Shane and Brendon, these guys who fell into something and don't know what comes next. The best book Shane read about screenwriting said everything in a story has to come from a character's wants, that no matter what he thinks he needs or says he's looking for, it's what he truly wants that will drive all the action.

The waiter slaps the bill on the table and Shane just barely manages to grab it out from under Ian's hand. "Don't be a fucktard," he says. "And don't go picking up people's meals because you're a rockstar now. Save your money."

Ian shoves his last bite of beans and rice in his mouth. "Thanks, Dad," he says, and sticks out a tongue covered in half-chewed food.

"You're going straight to bed," Shane says. "No dessert."

They smoke a bowl in the backyard while Dylan wrestles with a stuffed purple dinosaur Brendon's mom gave them. Ian yawns loudly and says, "Yeah, couch time, man."

Shane checks his phone. It's one a.m. and he hasn't seen Brendon since about that time the night before. "No, take Brendon's room, it's cool."

"But isn't he --"

"He's writing, you know," Shane says, and Ian nods like that's enough of a reason for a guy to not have slept in his own bed for weeks. "I'll text him," he adds.

When he walks in and flips the light in Brendon's room, it looks exactly like it did the day Shane went up to the cabin. It's not dusty and the housekeeper folded all the clothes and stacked them on the dresser, but it feels weird, abandoned. Ian says, "Fuck, my own  _bed_ , thanks man," and hugs Shane, clapping him on the back. "Marshall kicks like a bear."

Brendon sleeps like a statue, a million miles from how he is any waking hour of the day.

"Tell Brendon thanks, seriously."

"Tell him yourself tomorrow," Shane says, and as he's turning off lights in the living room and kitchen, he texts with one thumb:  _how are things going?_  He takes a shower and brushes his teeth and takes the dog out one last time, climbing into bed around three thirty. Thank god he's got the rest of the week off. Maybe he'll go back to sleeping days.

At five fifteen Brendon's arm slides around Shane's waist, warm bare legs brushing the back of his thighs. Brendon smells like weed and piña coladas or something else with coconuts. Tanning oil, maybe. He mouths wetly at Shane's neck and shoulder, rocking their hips together slowly.

Shane tilts his head back. "Ian's here. You saw him at a party?"

"Mmm," Brendon says, his tongue tracing the ridges of Shane's ear. "We can be quiet."

"That kid'll sleep through anything," Shane says. He doesn't mean it as  _so go ahead and stick your hand in my boxers_  but he's not going to stop Brendon from taking it that way, either.

++

Shane's gotten used to working real hours and gets up around nine. Ian's already sitting on the couch, watching a Steve McQueen movie on TBS. "You mind?" he says instead of good morning, waving his pipe, and Shane shakes his head no. Fuck, he kind of misses being eighteen.

Fuck, he's also pretty good at forgetting Brendon's not much older than that. Brendon still has a fake ID. And has to use it occasionally.

"Anything good in that fridge?" Ian calls. "Or are you just gonna climb in?"

Shane grabs OJ, milk for coffee and frozen waffles, kicking the door shut.

He loves the fuck out of his cousin, and Ian's doing awesome for himself, but Brendon is a few light years ahead when it comes to managing life in the fast lane. Shane's kind of glad that by the time they became friends Brendon had already learned that the bigger you get, the bigger the consequences are if you fuck up. He's pretty sure there's no fun way to figure that out.

Brendon wanders out in his underwear, scratching at his head and scrunching up one eye. He smiles sleepily at Shane and tracks the noise of the TV with blinking confusion. Then he yells "Crawford!" and does a flying somersault onto the couch. Shane watches them tussle on the floor, Brendon trying to get hold of Ian's crazy hair, Ian giggling and trying to wriggle free. Finally Brendon gets Ian in a headlock and Ian offers to trade him this really great weed he scored for his release. They're negotiating the finer points of the deal: how much weed, how many times Ian should have to bow down and worship Brendon on stage the next time he comes to a gig, whether anyone should be required to cut his hair.

At least Brendon remembered to put on underwear, Shane realizes, and then it's like slow-motion, the way he sees it coming just before it happens. Steve McQueen's car rolls down a mountainside and Shane watches Ian think.

"You should have kicked me out of your room, dude." Ian says it steadily, calmly, but Shane's played poker with him before. He never gives anything away. Ian slept in Brendon's room and was out in the living room before Brendon got up. Where did Brendon sleep?

"Oh," Brendon says, and stumbles for half a second before reassuring Ian, "no, no way, I didn't even really sleep, and you're, like, our first house guest! Our casa is your casa. Our maison is your maison. Our haus is your haus. That was German, though it sounds sort of the same." He's turned towards Shane during his flailing. "Are we having breakfast?"

"Okay," Shane says, and gets out another glass.

Breakfast is fine. Ian and Brendon talk about their bandmates doing stupid shit, mostly stories Shane's already heard from them separately. Ian talks smack about Shane's parents, and every time he calls Shane "Ryan," Brendon blinks a double-take.

"We're, like, working on songs during the  _day_  today," Brendon says incredulously. "I mean, working some more. Back at our old practice space though." He kicks Shane under the table, toes glancing off Shane's shinbone. "Remember when you came by and you had your camera and we made you film?"

"Yeah, remember how it took your label six months to pay me for that footage when they put it on the DVD?"

Ian says, "Whoa," and gulps his juice.

"Dude," Brendon says, "I totally forgot to tell you! Crush wants you to call and talk about maybe doing a making the album thing?"

"Really?"

"Yeah. It'll be great, like, a good long job for you. Well, you know. Assuming we ever actually, uh, make an album." He stabs his waffle with a fork tine and then sighs super dramatically. "I think they're definitely under the assumption we'll be making an album."

The deadpan falls a little flat and it's like a cartoon raincloud appears over Brendon's head, all his usual manic joy deflated in a gray sky. Brendon pushes back his chair and slowly stretches his arms towards the chandelier. While Shane toasted Eggo's, Brendon had gone back and put on sweats and an undershirt but neither fits very well. The pants are possibly Shane's, too baggy, and the shirt is way too small. Especially when Brendon's reaching up like that. Shane does not think about licking his way down the crease where Brendon's thigh meets his pelvis last night. That morning.

Brendon peeks down at Shane and Shane smiles. He tries to stop when he realizes it but it's too late, so he just grins up at Brendon and laughs and says, "Yeah, okay, tell me when you've gotten past the smoking up and putting on old records phase and I'll bring a camera over, how's that?" And Brendon lights up, jumping up a little and making the whole table shake when he hits the carpet again.

"Hey," Ian says, and they look at him. He says to Shane, "Hey, your mom wants us to come over for dinner if you aren't busy."

Brendon snorts. "Your mom."

"Both of you," Ian says.

Brendon holds his hands up. "Band stuff, sorry."

"You scared of Vickie now?" Ian taunts, with a shit-eating grin, and Brendon pins Ian's head against his chest and gives him a noogie on his way back to the bedroom.

"Brendon," Shane says sharply, and Brendon stops short in front of his own room.

"Oh yeah," he says, and makes a 90-degree turn, clicking his heels together.

When Brendon comes back he's actually dressed, tight jeans and a t-shirt that fits and his hoodie of the month. Shane has taken those clothes off him so many times now it's hard not to think about sex again.

"Totally crash in there again tonight," Brendon is saying. "I'll probably just be at Ryan's."

After Shane joins Ian in smoking another bowl and watching another muscle car movie from the '70s and talking bullshit for two hours, Ian says, carefully, "So Brendon seems kinda stressed out."

"Yeah," Shane says. "I've been --" A car bursts into flames and, off-screen, a woman screams. "Worried," he finishes, feeling lame.

Ian shrugs. "He'll be okay." He stares at Shane for a while and then another explosion catches his attention.

They have dinner with Shane's parents, sit through more family gossip, and when they get back he has to remind Ian again that Brendon said it was cool to sleep in his bed. "How the fuck do you remember how to play guitar?" Shane asks, and Ian waves his fingers in the air and talks about muscle memory.

It's relatively early when Brendon comes home, maybe a little before three. Shane's lying in bed reading that year's Best American Movie Writing and Brendon pauses in the door and says, "Aww. Big test tomorrow?"

"Fuck off," Shane says automatically, though now he feels kind of douchey, like he's trying to impress someone or seem smart. He just likes reading about movies almost as much as he likes watching them. "Calling it an early night?"

"No, it's -- I mean, yeah, we're done tonight, punched the clock and blew the whistle." Brendon steps in, closing the door behind him, and beams as he says, "We wrote a  _song_. A real song, I think. For a real album."

Shane puts the book on the floor. "That's awesome," he says, but it seems so inadequate in the face of Brendon's sudden personality change. "Come here," he says, and Brendon takes a running leap, almost kicking Shane in the face as he bounces across the bed. Shane grabs Brendon and pulls him down until he's lying right on top of Shane, knees between Shane's legs.

They make out for a while, and it's definitely making out, not kissing before fucking. Shane can tell Brendon's so keyed up he won't be able to concentrate on anything yet, not even sex. He keeps his hand loose on Brendon's throat and when he feels Brendon's heart rate calm, he slows the kissing down until they stop. Brendon turns his face, lying with his cheek on Shane's collarbone, and he lets out a big breath all at once, going boneless and heavy.

"I thought maybe we weren't going to," Brendon says, and Shane strokes the back of his neck slow and gentle. "The great wolf massacre, that's what Spencer called it. We sent Pete the tapes, and the label, and -- it's easier to think you're totally misunderstood geniuses, maybe, than figure out what you're doing so fucking wrong."

Shane kisses Brendon's temple and waits.

"I think we got it right this time, though. This -- it's a big song, but it's not trying so hard. It sounds like us." He hums against Shane's skin, something that sounds like  _can you feel it too_ , and then he lifts his head. "Now we should have some celebratory sex," he says, and raises one eyebrow. "To the victor goes the spoils, I hear."

"Is that what you hear," Shane says, but he hooks an ankle around Brendon's leg all the same.

++

Shane wakes up with what feels a hell of a lot like a pulled hamstring, and he doesn't see Brendon for three days. He gets two text messages:  _ryan says no sleep til brooklyn. it's funnier when ryan says it._  and  _wondering what the world record for album writing is. do we get a prize if we break it?!?_. So it's not like Brendon's dead or missing or something. He's with his band. That's what he does.

On day two Shane calls around seeing who might have work. On day three he goes and helps his dad edit a commercial. That night he comes home and Brendon is in the shower. Shane pokes his head into the steamy room and Brendon yelps.

"It's me," Shane says. "You know, your --" He stops.

Brendon wipes clear a circle on the door and smushes his face against it. "What?" he says, voice all distorted, lips against glass.

"You're home," Shane says, speaking up as if the shower is all that loud. "I'll let you --"

"What?" Brendon knocks on the shower door. "Knock knock," he says.

"-- get cleaned up," Shane finishes.

He folds laundry, puts away the clean clothes, kicks a stray shoe under the bed. When Brendon comes in, a wave of fog follows, and he balls up his towel and chucks it at Shane's head. He smells like grapefruit body wash, the stuff he finally brought back from the other bathroom after complaining for a month that Shane's wasn't as yummy.

Shane sits on the edge of the bed and when Brendon comes to stand between his legs, Shane draws him closer, bending to suck Brendon until he's fully hard, then sliding to the carpet so he can get down a little farther.

They lay around on the bed for a while after, even though it's still light out and both their stomachs are growling. "You wanna come film us tomorrow?" Brendon asks, tucking and untucking Shane's hair behind his ears over and over, and Shane shrugs.

"Sure, okay."

"Like when you came last summer and filmed? Remember?"

Of course Shane remembers. It was the first time he filmed Panic all together, them and their extra musicians figuring out new arrangements, Jon trying to keep up and Brendon trying to let him instead of jumping in to play everything at once. Shane had sat on the floor a while, camera rolling, and tried to figure out how it all worked, how the band worked, how this weird kid he'd met at a skate park could, bam, just like that, pull it together and be a front man.

"I remember," he says. He wasn't even there that day to shoot, just had his stuff with him when Brendon had called during a break and said, "Come by and meet the guys, we can go get wings or something."

Brendon props himself up on one elbow. He stares down seriously at Shane and Shane gets a queasy kick of nerves up his back. Brendon says, "I've never had sex in that practice room." He sighs and falls back onto the pillow.

Shane swallows. "Oh yeah?"

++

They're the last to arrive. Brendon lost his cell phone again and it took twenty minutes for Shane to remember that when in doubt they should look under the couch.

He hadn't realized other people were coming to watch the band rehearse. He hadn't even known the girls were all in town. Cassie and Haley are sitting with their backs to the mirrored wall, heads close together, and Keltie is punching Ryan in the arm and cackling like a hyena.

"Ahoy, fair ladies and gentlemen, we have landed on your friendly shore!" Brendon sing-songs, and Spencer bangs out a rat-a-tat-tat before flipping a drumstick in the air and catching it. Jon grins lazily and says, "Ahoy, matey," and Keltie throws an "arrrrg" over her shoulder. Ryan bends his neck and laughs into her hair.

Shane picks a dust bunny off his jacket sleeve.

"Oh, hi, Shane, hi," Keltie says brightly, and then he's wrapped up in her hug. She's like Brendon in that way, effusive and open with affection. He folds his arms around her tiny back and squeezes until she squeaks. "It's been way too long," she says, "I'm so glad you're here, I had no idea!"

When they finally let go he toes at his camera bag and Brendon says, "All we have is footage from the cabin, I thought --"

"That's great," Ryan says, and nods at Shane.

Spencer rests both sticks on the snare and leans forward. "How'd that come out, anyway?"

Shane has seven DV tapes stacked next to his computer. He watched 20 minutes of one when he first got back to Vegas, the house somehow both claustrophobic and cavernous without the cabin's vaulted ceilings or Brendon. It was too weird to have Brendon there on his monitor in black and white, beautiful and far away.

"I've been working a lot," he says. "There's some good stuff in there, though."

Brendon plops down on the keyboard stool, flying through a scale before launching into the Beatles. "They're gonna put me in the movies," he sings. "They're gonna make a big star out of me!"

Ryan strums tentatively but joins in singing with a quiet confidence. "We'll make a film about a man that's sad and lonely --"

"And all I gotta do," Brendon picks up, "is act naturallllly."

Spencer crashes a cymbal. "And that," he says, "is why drummers shouldn't sing." Jon starts to protest but Spencer waves him off. "We all ready now?"

Ryan nods and Spencer counts them off. Shane's sat through enough practices to know it's not over until they've played the song so many times everyone is ready to scream, so he takes his time getting his equipment out.

They start with the new song, the one Brendon came home singing and Shane's been humming ever since,  _back to the place where it all began_. Brendon growls his way through the chorus, pounding at the keys. He beams at Shane and shakes his bangs off his forehead. How can anyone not be at least a little in love with Brendon, seeing him like this?

Fuck. Shane props the camera on his shoulder, checks the viewfinder and then stares at the floor for a while. He's at least a little in love with Brendon.

The next song must be even newer, because Shane is sure he would remember the sun and the moon falling in love in the middle of summer. He glances up to see if Brendon's actually taking it seriously. He is, but not half as much as Keltie, who is smiling into her palm and staring up at Ryan, who's grinning back down at her. Shane slowly swings around and the focus slides across Haley. She's not smiling. She's --

He blinks but the look is the same. She's  _glaring_  at him.

Brendon wails a long final note and Shane jerks back to catch the last chord. He keeps the camera on the band the rest of the rehearsal. When they decide to break for lunch he risks turning an eye to Haley. She's downgraded her look to suspicious. Shane wishes he didn't have something to feel guilty about, even if he's not sure why he does feel guilty. He and Brendon aren't doing anything  _wrong_.

"I didn't have anything that couldn't fit in a suitcase," she tells Cassie, who says, "me neither."

They're talking about movers, he realizes. Jon had mentioned up in the mountains that he and Cassie had finally combined apartments, and Haley must be here for summer break or -- or she's staying with Spencer for good. She's younger than all of them, he remembers. Spencer just went to her prom.

God, she's eighteen. Keltie's older than Ryan, almost Shane's age, he thinks, and Cassie seems close to Jon's. But Haley is Ian's age. She's younger than Brendon, and she's looking at Shane again like she knows all his secrets.

He shoves his extra battery pack in the bag. He can come back and shoot more another day if the guys want.

"Ryan says subs." Brendon's at his elbow from nowhere. If Shane doesn't have a camera trained on him sometimes his movement is hard to predict. "But Ryan  _always_  says subs and I want more, Shane. I want more. I want it all, in fact. I want --"

Shane meets his eyes, and Brendon gives a dramatic flourish, hands swooping through the air.

"I want a  _buffet_ ," Brendon says, decisively.

Jon calls, "Bellagio, motherfuckers!" and Spencer says, "Fuck, no, you  _know_  the Rio is better food." They're going to be in the car before they figure out whose turn it is to win that argument.

Haley and Cassie roll their eyes at each other and Cassie shoves at Brendon's chest, saying, "Thanks, thanks a lot."

He bounces off Shane's shoulder, feigning injury. "You wound me, woman!" he cries after Cassie as she follows Jon out the door.

Then it's just the three of them, and Haley says, "Hi Shane," like they haven't been in the same small space the last two hours.

He says, "hey." He thinks the last time they saw each other was her spring break, maybe.

"How's Regan doing?"

 _That_  is not what he was expecting. Not that he thought she was going to look at him and say, like,  _I know you and Brendon are fucking_ , but still. He says, "Uh, we broke up," because it's the truth and because he has no goddamn idea what else he could answer or how this conversation could get any more awkward.

Brendon says, "You did?"

Shane sternly reminds his lungs to breathe in and out and his eyes to stay open and his legs to stand straight.

Haley looks between them slowly. "I'm sorry to hear that," she says, and Shane says something lame like, "yeah, you know how it is," even though he has a feeling she doesn't, that she and Spencer are each other's firsts, probably first everything, sex and love and living together and thinking they invented it all.

She doesn't know how it is, but then again neither does he. He's never done whatever this is, either. Brendon is standing very still, his shoulder still brushing Shane's.

"I'm hungry," Brendon says quietly, and Haley says, "sure, let's go."

Shane waits until they're out at the cars, Spencer idling with the windows down and watching the door. "I have to go swing by my dad's, actually," he says, the words almost as smooth as he'd just practiced in his head. He looks at Brendon. "But I'll see you later, yeah?"

Brendon nods. "See you at home," he says. He sounds a little lost. Shane knows the feeling.

++

"Hey," Brendon says, and drops his phone back onto the floor by the bed. "Remember at that barbecue when my mom wanted me to go to the reception for my cousin Rick's blessing and I was busy and Kara cornered me and said I needed to come over for dinner soon and you were there and I said okay?"

Shane rolls over onto his stomach, stretching out his legs. "Not really."

"She's called twice." Brendon trails a hand over Shane's back.

"Uh, okay," Shane says. "That's fine."

Everything is fine. They don't have to talk about it. Brendon's not going to bring up Haley or Regan or any of it. It's fine. They don't  _need_  to talk about it. Things are good, really.

Brendon's been home every night by 10. They make dinner or go out to eat and then they get in bed, where Brendon is quietly needy, wanting to be touched all the time. He's always back at the practice space by noon. Neither of them is sleeping in much, so they spend a lot of mornings like this, lazy in bed and bullshitting.

None of the stories Brendon tells about the writing are like before, no fights or disagreements or "differences," as Brendon calls them. It's a lot of getting stoned and rocking out and peeling back the layers of this easygoing new band they've become. Maybe his need for reassurance isn't about the music at all.

Before he leaves, Brendon says, "I told Kara tonight was good. I think we're taking the weekend off anyway."

"Okay," Shane says, and doesn't think much about it until Brendon texts him around three.

 _what should we bring to dinner?_

"Oh," he says aloud, and Dylan yanks on the leash. She's a strong girl for being a small dog.

They pick up strawberry shortcake from the specialty bakery down the street. Brendon wears a t-shirt without a double-entendre and Shane stops himself from asking if it's okay that he's got jeans on. Kara kisses his cheek at the door and says it's so good to see him.

At dinner they talk about how Panic's new songs are coming along, about a go-cart company that Shane shot a commercial for and the kids are obsessed with, about some cousin on Mrs. Urie's side who insists on having a huge fancy wedding reception even though everyone else had casual backyard things.

After, Shane watches some baseball while Brendon rolls around on the floor with his nephew and acts like he's stuck in a headlock. Kara comes in and sits down on the ottoman, smiling as she clips her hair back. When Shane looks over again he realizes she's smiling at him, not Brendon. He smiles back.

Kara's sweet, smart and sharply observant at unexpected moments. The first time she came by their house, months and months ago, she let Brendon lead her around, showing off each room. "We have rooms we don't even need!" he bragged, and she bit her lip a little and pulled him into a one-armed hug.

"I wish this was your first place," she said, low.

Brendon's eyes welled up and cleared so fast, like a flash flood beaten back by a shifting storm. "Movin' on up," he said more than sang, "and anyway now I have  _Shane_. I have a roommate. We're going to get a dog!"

Brendon pins his nephew's forehead carefully to the carpet, chanting, "Say uncle, say uncle!" Every single time the kid giggles and squeals, "But you  _are_  my uncle!" until Brendon flips him back over and blows a raspberry on his stomach.

Kara says to Shane, "He's really happy."

The way she says it, gentle but deliberate -- it's like she's complimenting Shane somehow. He doesn't know why he ever thought she'd miss that something's going on just because he and Brendon never actually discuss it. His muscles lock up, but she just smiles right at him, a little sadness maybe on the edges, and then looks back to the wrestling match.

Brendon sits up suddenly, throwing his nephew over his shoulder. He blows his hair out of his face and grins wide before rising to his feet and stumbling off like a giant, singing a song about grinding bones to make his bread. Shane hears himself laugh warmly, watching them go, and then he makes himself breathe deep and turn to Kara and say, "Thank you." She squeezes his shoulder and follows Brendon into the kitchen.

Brendon literally does not lay a finger on Shane from the time they leave their house until they get back, but the minute they walk back in the door he grabs Shane's wrist, tugging until they're standing hip to hip. Their legs and feet fit together like they're dancing in the foyer, and Shane holds his breath as Brendon lifts his chin and presses his lips to Shane's.

It's sweet and soft, like a first kiss, and it makes Shane dizzy. He grips Brendon's shoulder, squeezing to hold himself steady, and Brendon gasps against Shane's mouth. Shane is still afraid to breathe. He's been so nervous lately, for days now. Every time he's around Brendon, especially every time they're like this, he's worried he might open his mouth and say the wrong thing. Or maybe it's the right thing, but the wrong time. He kisses Brendon harder instead, holds his face steady and firm and steers him down the hall to their bedroom.

He's got Brendon on his back, pants around his calves, the head of his cock pressed to Shane's cheek, when Brendon starts talking. "Everyone loves you," Brendon says, "I love, I love how you just fit in with -- with my family, everyone, it's --"

Shane sucks hard, sliding a hand around Brendon's ass to keep him close. He doesn't have to worry about saying the wrong thing like this, and he tries not to listen either.

But Brendon's voice -- it's  _Brendon_ , and his voice can do anything, and even as he gets breathy and high-pitched Shane doesn't know how to not hear him. Not when he's saying, "You, you always have to come home with me, Shane, please, you make it -- you make it bearable, please."

Shane doesn't say no. He doesn't know what to say, if he should warn Brendon that Kara knows, if he should keep acting like there's nothing to know, if he has any right to push on this when he's not the one who could lose everything.

"Please, Shane," Brendon says, as Shane rests his head on Brendon's stomach after, and Shane kisses his hipbone. He doesn't say no.

++

Shane might have forgotten Brendon's still not old enough to be legally allowed in the door at a club opening if Brendon hadn't been waving his new fake ID around all day, pulling it out and holding it up, turning left and right again and saying, "I could totally pass for Pete, right?"

It turns out no one cares when you're on the VIP list. They get ushered in and through to a roped-off section set just above the club. It's not a bad scene, and the liquor is expensive but free for them and Brendon seems in a good mood. Ryan shows a little after midnight and when they want to smoke up, a bodyguard leads them to a screened area on a balcony, then turns his back and keeps his eyes on the crowd.

Shane has a high school buddy whose uncle is general manager at the Luxor, and sometimes on a weeknight they could get comped the cover and bottle service, but it was nothing like this. It's like they could do anything and get away with it. It makes him want to try to get away with something. This must be why anyone cares about being rich and famous and powerful, this right here, the unlimited possibilities and no one to say stop.

When they come back into the room, Brendon heads for the bar, and Shane ends up talking with Ryan about big music festivals for what seems like an eternity. Ryan's annoyed they didn't get on the bill for Coachella, even though the timing was all fucked and Shane keeps telling him it's so hot even growing up in Vegas doesn't help you survive. He asks Shane about thirty questions about seeing Queens of the Stone Age in 2002, like maybe Shane's memorized the set list and is just withholding the information to be cruel.

Shane looks around for Brendon and spots him at the bar, talking to a girl with short, dark hair. He's clearly yelling a little over the music, making big motions with his arms and then leaning in to speak in her ear. They look over at the VIP area once, then huddle together again as if conspiring. Shane offers to get Ryan another whatever he wants and doesn't try too hard to talk him out of leaving when he says actually he's done for the night.

Shane gets stuck trying to make his way across the room, a knot of guys all together blocking the space between two couches. The three whose backs he's staring at, landlocked, all have the same haircut, short in the back with gelled spikes on top. They're wearing shiny collared shirts and tightly tailored pants, like typical gay guys. Shane isn't sure what to do with the jab of guilt he feels for noticing, for thinking before anything else that at least he's nothing like them, like that. He knows guys just like them, and they're cool. He just hasn't been out at a club like this in a while. He and Brendon haven't been out much at all lately.

The guys are talking shit about someone who's totally gay, no matter what he says or how many fag hags he buys drinks for. It's just guys talking shit, guys being asshole guys, gay or not. "Look," one says, craning his neck. "Look at that ass, seriously! God would never waste an ass like that on a straight guy."

"Or a top," another laughs, and elbows the third, pointing carelessly when his friend still can't tell who they're talking about.

They're talking about Brendon.

"I would hit that," someone says, and Shane shoves his way through.

Brendon says, "Why hello there," and slings an arm casually around Shane's shoulder. He mock bows at the girl and says, "May I introduce Shane Valdez, nominee for best director and all around best man?" She giggles. "And this is Marisa," he says, "a fair maiden from a faraway land here to wile away the hours among mere mortals."

"Hey," Shane says, and she laughs again. Shane's not convinced it's not directed at him, and he shrugs out from under Brendon's arm. "Hey, can I talk to you for a second?" he asks Brendon, and doesn't wait for an answer, just pushes with a hand on Brendon's back towards the balcony.

The gay guys stare openly as they pass, and Shane tries to skim his gaze across them like he's seen Zack do with eager girls, as if they're invisible. One guy tilts his jaw towards another, so close it's like they might kiss, but all he does is murmur, "So that's the boyfriend, huh." Brendon doesn't seem to notice and Shane doesn't stop.

The guard acknowledges Brendon with a minute amount of movement, holding the curtain aside and then pulling it closed again behind them. Then they're alone on the iron-gated ledge, the Strip lighting up the street far below.

Brendon says, "She's nice, right? She wants us to --"

Shane pins Brendon against the railing and kisses him. He's had a lot to drink, and smoked a fair amount, and behind Brendon there is nothing but night sky and the shadowy outline of mountains in the moonlight. Maybe they'll fall from the precipice, a great flailing mess of arms and legs into the abyss. Brendon thrusts up, the button of his jeans digging into Shane's stomach, and tangles their tongues together for one long minute. Then he shoves Shane away, knuckles white where his other hand is squeezed in a tight fist around the rail.

"Shane, not -- come on."

"I know we live right here," Shane says, "but let's get a room anyway. We could --"

"I told Marisa I'd be right back," Brendon says, eyes on his feet. "She asked if we wanted to, uh --"

Shane walks out. At valet he gives Brendon's name and takes the casino's car home alone.

He throws up twice, tequila and whiskey burning so much worse on the way back up, then sleeps until noon. If he spends any time thinking about where Brendon might be he's going to puke again.

Instead he goes to the store to buy groceries, finally opens two weeks' worth of mail, and spends an hour drooling over the new D700 in the Nikon catalog. He sits with his laptop at the dining table and makes himself a deal that if he does his quarterly taxes and he owes within a thousand dollars of what he set aside that he can buy the camera. That's assuming his bank account balance agrees with the arrangement.

His account balance is clearly wrong. He's been working a lot, yeah, and depositing checks without keeping close track because he knows what he spends in a month on rent and utilities and food and it's been a good run of working for people who pay promptly. He knows he's ahead of the game, but free drinks at clubs and catered meals on sets aren't enough to explain this.  _Bank error in your favor_ , his brain hums, but life is not a game of Monopoly and Shane's never that lucky.

He goes back through the last six months of transactions and when he figures out what's wrong he wishes he hadn't had Jack in the Box for lunch. It's just about as foul coming up again as tequila.

Brendon comes home around ten that night in a brand new shirt and jeans and the faint stink of unfamiliar shampoo. "Why are you sitting in the dark?" he asks, opening the fridge for a beer, and Shane can't think of anything to say but, "Why'd you stop cashing my rent checks?"

He hears the bottle clink down on the counter and raises his voice so he can be heard in the kitchen.

"I know you're a fucking rock star and all, but I assure you I can cover my half of the house."

"I know you can," Brendon says. He stands on the threshold between the rooms. "You -- you should see these royalty checks, Shane, they're completely retarded."

"I don't want your money." Shane closes his laptop, screen dead from being left open and unplugged for hours. "I don't want you for your money," he clarifies, and Brendon has just turned on the light so Shane can see exactly how much he pales. Shane's got that nervous feeling again but all backwards, not like he might tell Brendon he's in love with him but like he might say, "I don't want this."

He says it.

"Don't want what," Brendon says, and Shane can taste the promise of bile again.

His cell rings and he answers it. If he's on the phone he doesn't have to talk to Brendon.

"Hey, Brendon's phone is just ringing and ringing." It's Jon. "Can you tell him Cassie and Haley are having some girls' night in thing and so we're meeting at the place on Fourth Street instead? He knows which one, the one where Ryan tried to win a pool game that time, okay?"

Shane says, "Okay."

"You're coming, right?" Shane doesn't know what to say. "Come on, dude, it's boys' night out, or guys' night, whatever. Dudes' night. You have to come."

++

Brendon is surly all the way to the bar, kicking his toes into the dashboard. He knocks back a shot as soon as they arrive, orders a double, and tells Shane he's not in the mood to sit down. Spencer, at Shane's elbow, says, "Come hang out in the booth with us," so he does, nursing a whiskey sour and half-listening as Spencer and Ryan talk about their girlfriends. Shane is definitely not in the mood.

He watches as Brendon and Jon buy a round for a couple of pretty chicks, and then another round, and then a third. Spencer and Ryan have gone out to the car to smoke up and come back, and as the girl with long brown hair slides her hand down to squeeze Brendon's ass, Shane can't quite remember why he didn't go with them. He's not really fucked up enough to either stop caring or make sense of it.

When he slops a little over the rim of his glass, Spencer nudges him with a shoulder and tilts his chin at Jon and Brendon and the giggling girls. He's talking and all Shane catches is the end, " -- fight or something?" Shane shrugs. Or something. Spencer says, more clearly and closer to Shane's ear, "I love Brendon, but just 'cause you guys have a deal or whatever doesn't mean he has to be a douchebag about it."

"A deal?" Shane says, and the skin on his palms tingles. The words leave little echoes behind them, like how a shitty speaker system will buzz when the sound is shot.

Spencer says, "Or whatever, whatever," and holds his hands up. "Just because he's fucking girls doesn't make it less shitty when he does it right in your face. If Haley --"

Shane tries and fails to catch his glass as it upends, rivers of amber liquid sliding off the wooden table. Ryan jumps up, staring hard at them both. "Sorry," Shane says, and does what he can with the square of cocktail napkin to clean it up. Ryan says Spencer's name, loudly, without looking away from Shane.

Spencer blinks slowly once, and then again, and then says, "Shit, no, I'm sorry."

"Yeah," Ryan says. "You are so fucking --"

"Fuck," Spencer says, and then puts his hand on Shane's sleeve. "I am so stoned, dude."

Shane nods, and they sit there a while. "It's a good thing I'm pretty drunk," he says finally, and slides out of the booth. It's not like he didn't know, like he can't see what happens right in front of him. Just because he didn't want to put all the pieces together doesn't mean he's blind.

Spencer stands outside with him as he waits for a cab and even though it's fucking with his sense of time, Shane's glad they're not talking. Spencer glowers and repeatedly shoves his hands into his tight jeans pockets and pulls them out again. When the taxi shows up, Spencer says, "You gonna be okay?"

"Or something," Shane says, because if nothing else he can enjoy the symmetry of the scene. He stops halfway into the car. "There's no deal," he clarifies. It's the first fucking thing he's ever said aloud to someone else that actually acknowledges whatever it is that he and Brendon are doing.

Spencer nods miserably, squeezing Shane's arm, and tells the guy the house address as Shane leans his head back against the seat. Once they're moving the driver repeats it back to Shane, says "Unicorn Way?" like it's a punchline.

Shane says, "Yeah, it's really gay, I know," and keeps his eyes closed the whole ride.

++

At five a.m., Shane wakes up to a thunk at the foot of the bed. He pushes up on his elbows and watches in the half-light as Brendon kicks off his other shoe and sheds his clothes, blowing air through pursed lips like he always does when he's half-wasted and can't move as fast as he'd like. He slides beneath the covers, reaching for Shane and tugging him close, as if Shane's been waiting up and now they're gonna roll around a while before they either get worked up and fuck or give up and pass out.

Shane's still half-wasted himself, and Brendon's wet mouth on his neck lights a slow fuse down his spine. He sniffs, the sound obvious in the still room, but Brendon doesn't flinch, and he doesn't smell like anything but cigarettes and tequila, maybe tequila and vodka. He doesn't smell like anyone but himself, sweaty and oblivious as he dips his fingers below the elastic of Shane's boxers. Shane drags his hands down Brendon's back, hard, pushing down with the pads of each finger into the muscles, and Brendon moans, rolling his shoulders out and arching up.

Usually it's Brendon offering a massage, kneading out the knots from where Shane's had a camera on his shoulder all day. The heaviest lifting Brendon's done all night is a couple of drinks, and Shane feels the growl in his throat before it's actually voiced, low and angry, making Brendon lift his face from Shane's neck in mild confusion.

It's so fucked up,  _this_  is so fucked up, that Shane still wants to fuck Brendon when he should at least be playing out some tired jealous act. But he does still want Brendon, wants to stay here in their bed in their house and act like nothing's changed, like this can go on forever as long as they never say out loud what's wrong.

"What's wrong," Brendon slurs, thumbs stroking down each side of Shane's face, and Shane is so fucking  _angry_  that he's figured his shit out, he's done his goddamned best to make sense of a confusing few months of his life, and not by running around and fucking anyone who will make him feel better about it. He just wants to feel better about it, to feel good, to get what no one gets from Brendon, to have all of him, home and family and music and sex, all of it. Shane pulls him down and bites at his lip, bites harder when Brendon grins into the pain, and shoves Brendon's shoulders hard, pushing him down Shane's chest until he gets it and tugs Shane's boxers down enough to get his mouth around Shane's cock.

Shane doesn't want to make it easy for him, doesn't want to make it nice. He jerks his hips hard when he should let them roll nice and easy and expected, tightens his hands in Brendon's hair when he should smooth it down, doesn't give any warning because if after all these months Brendon can't figure out when Shane's about to come he's only got himself to blame. He lets the undertow pull him down, after, instead of fighting back up to get Brendon off. Brendon is perfectly capable of getting himself off.

When Shane wakes up again there's a crust of dried come on Brendon's stomach and though Shane's not quiet or careful getting up, he doesn't stir. Shane showers, makes a frozen waffle and a pot of coffee and doesn't bother sitting down to consume them. It's noon but he's not up for waiting around until Brendon drags his ass out of bed, so he pours Brendon's share of the coffee into a travel mug and gets in the car. He drives halfway to his folks' house, then veers off to do donuts in his empty high school parking lot. He cruises around the golf course, thinking about townhouses versus high rises. The Metropolis seems like a decent place to live if he wants to get a condo. He can probably afford a down payment, especially if the behind the scenes deal goes through.

Assuming, he realizes, idling at a stop sign, that he still has a job after he tells Brendon he meant it, that he doesn't want to do this, not like this. He'll definitely be needing a new place to live. And some new friends, because he's not going to fool himself into thinking the band is gonna want to hang out and shoot the shit after everything goes down. A car honks from behind and he pulls forward a few feet and then to the side of the road, staring out at a tiny park where three kids are fighting over the two swings. He's really fucked up his life.

His phone buzzes.  _help can't pick couch bluegreenredpink?_.

Brendon's been bitching about their couch for months now, swearing he was going to find something less ugly, proclaiming his independence of any and all overpriced decorators favored by his tasteless bandmates. Shane types,  _not pink_  but deletes it. What the fuck does he care if Brendon buys an even uglier couch for a house Shane shouldn't be living in?

 _please please come meet me can't do this without you too many choices too many pillows!!!_

Shane puts the car back in gear. They'd gone to Robb & Stucky before Brendon went up to the cabin. If Brendon is there when Shane gets to the store, he'll pick out a fucking couch with him. And then they can go home and have an actual fucking conversation on it.

++

Brendon is holding court from an overstuffed chair at the head of a living room set-up, two blonde clerks giggling as he gestures expansively and describes the couch of his dreams. Shane stands a few feet behind him, watching, until a young guy with a pink tie and an overly gelled faux-hawk comes up. "You together?" he asks, polite and knowing all at once, and if Shane was the one in this unspoken relationship with the issues he'd deck the guy just for assuming that much. Brendon turns around, says Shane's name with bright enthusiasm, and then hauls him around the showroom to see his top three favorite choices, babbling some language of color options and fabrics that Shane doesn't pretend to process.

He's not deliberately shooting down all Brendon's picks, he's just hard pressed to appreciate anything Brendon suggests. "I thought you liked the brown leather," Brendon pouts, and Shane snaps, "Get whatever couch you want, it's your fucking house."

Brendon stares at his feet, bites a knuckle and darts a look around them. They're alone in a corner of the showroom. "You're there more than I am," Brendon says. "I just, we should get something we both like, right?"

"I don't --" Shane starts, but no, he's not going to fucking break up with Brendon in the middle of a goddamned store, he's not, whatever it is it deserves more, deserves worse maybe but definitely not like this. "I'll meet you at home," he says, trying to sound steady and calm though the last word comes out choked and wet.

++

Everything looks just like it did when he left that afternoon, except his plate is in the dishwasher and the bed has been made. He takes Dylan out around the block, walking slower and slower as they approach the house, letting her stay and sniff the grass and trees as long as she wants. Brendon's car is in the driveway and the porch light has been turned on. Finally he scoops Dylan up in his arms and walks up the steps, setting her down again once they're inside. It's quiet inside and he calls, "hey," as she scampers off to her bowl.

He finds Brendon sitting at the end of his bed, in his own bedroom. His hands are folded on his lap and he looks all of fifteen, fifteen and busted and contrite and still confused about what he should be apologizing for. He stares up, fidgety and unsure, at where Shane's stopped in the doorway. This is the part Shane would have worried about if he'd been thinking things through, if he'd ever made himself picture what the end could look like.

Shane sighs and crosses his arms. "Do you even get why I'm pissed?" he asks.

"Is it about the checks? Because I'll go cash them tomorrow, all of them at once, if that's what you want." Shane doesn't speak. "Is it -- why did you leave the club last night? Is that why?"

"Did you fuck one of those girls?" Shane asks, and immediately wishes he hadn't, because Brendon looks baffled.

"Last night?" he asks, and then says, "No." He tilts his head a bit and then adds, "I let her blow me in the bathroom, but I didn't --"

"Jesus, Brendon, listen to yourself." Shane kicks his heel back against the door and it makes a hollow, splintering noise.

"You never said --" Brendon stands up. "It's, I -- never with other guys, if that's what you think."

"Just with girls," Shane says, and rolls his eyes because that's still safer than throwing a punch. "Brendon, we fucking live together."

"Yeah, it's awesome," Brendon says, way too reasonably, and waves his hand in some loose sign language Shane doesn't want to translate. "But it's not like we're --"

Shane knocks his head back against the molding. "We're  _gay_ ," he says, and opens his eyes again. Brendon's mouth is wide. Shane knows they don't talk about it, that probably the worst thing he can do is push Brendon on this in particular. But he can't stop now. "This, what we're doing," he says, "it's gay. We live together and we fuck each other and then we fall asleep in the same fucking bed and then we get up and do it all again and everyone -- everyone knows, Brendon, they all already know. Your band, Ian, my family,  _your_  family --"

"They don't know anything about this --"

"They know," Shane says again. "They know there's more going on than we're saying. But fine, whatever, I shouldn't care if you fuck around as long as it's not with other guys, and you're not gay because you still fuck girls, right?"

"I'm not gay," Brendon says, small and weak. Brendon is the worst liar Shane's ever met and right now he's not even trying.

"That's pretty fucked up," Shane says. "Regan dumped me and my dad gave me this whole fucking speech about how artists have to imagine their lives in ways they'd never expected and -- and  _Kara_  told me she's glad you're so happy now, Brendon. But you just do whatever the fuck feels good, okay, whatever works for you. I've never done any of this before either but it doesn't seem that fucking hard to figure out it could work if we wanted it to. If we _both_  wanted it to."

Brendon's shoulders are shaking but he's not making any noise, not actually crying. "I don't even know what this is," he says in one tight exhalation.

"You know what it is," Shane says, and Brendon shakes his head again, a tiny little movement Shane wishes he hadn't seen. "You fucking know what it is, Brendon."

"No," Brendon says, and takes a deep breath. Shane waits. He waits for the rest but there isn't any more, apparently.

"Then you better figure out what you want it to be," he says.

++

In the movies, this is the scene where the wife takes a suitcase and the kids and goes to her mother's house, and if the husband has been a big enough dick maybe her dad will call and yell or even go over and rough him up a little. But Shane's not the wife, it's a good thing they don't have any actual kids, and like hell is he about to call his mom.

He takes a gym bag and the dog and goes to Spencer's.

Spencer's and Haley's, he remembers, when she opens the door. "Uh," he says, and then Spencer calls out, "Who is it, honey?"

"It's Shane," she says, and Spencer comes out of the kitchen with an apron around his waist and a smear of something red across one eyebrow.

He looks from Shane to the dog to the duffel. "Fuck," he says, "come in."

They sit at the kitchen table and Spencer puts down a beer without asking. Shane stares at the bottle.

"Something stronger?" Spencer offers.

Haley says, "I was just about to roll a joint." Shane blinks hard and looks at her again. "Really," she says. "Like I could live with this guy and not be a total pothead too."

"Not a  _total_  pothead," Spencer argues, running a hand through her hair. "Besides, she doesn't really drink at all."

Shane takes a long pull of the beer. He's thirsty even if he's in no mood to get drunk, and Spencer obviously told Haley everything. "I thought you hated me," he says.

Haley says, "No, no," right away, but then stares at the table for a while, fidgeting. Finally she looks up and says, "I thought you were using him."

"Oh," Shane says.

Spencer's phone bursts into an awful, annoying ring, like an alarm clock. Shane can see Brendon's name lit up on the display and when Spencer raises his eyebrow, Shane shrugs. "It's fine."

Brendon's squawking is loud, and when it pauses, Spencer says, "Yeah, he's here."

Haley puts her hand on Shane's arm, rubbing her thumb over the sleeve where it folds in to button at the wrist.

"He is not stealing your band, Brendon," Spencer says, and rolls his eyes. "Or your dog."

Shane can make out stray words in Brendon's tirade, Dylan's name and " _my_  fucking friends" and then Spencer shoves back his chair and stands up.

"I don't know," he yells, "why in the world could  _your_  boyfriend possibly be at my house looking like he wants to die?"

Squawk. Scream. Dylan and Spencer's dogs yap at each other and run around the couch.

Shane would go shut himself in the bathroom or something equally dramatic but he's not sure what the point is anyway. Spencer truly angry is something Shane had thought he'd witnessed up in the mountains but that frustration has nothing on how legitimately furious he seems now.

"No," Spencer says, icy and mean. " _You_  listen to me. You two are totally together and you're trying to act like you're not and it's completely ridiculous. And if you can't get your shit together and end up getting, fuck, like gay divorced, you're only going to see that dog every other week and -- no, fuck  _you_ , Brendon, that might be about as often as I want to see you too."

Shane looks down and he and Haley are holding hands. He drinks the rest of his beer. This has been, hands down, the most unbelievable day of his life.

"Yeah, go talk to Ryan, I'm sure that'll --" Spencer sighs and drops the phone on the table.

"Wow," Shane says eventually, because, wow. "I don't think he's ever hung up on me."

"He's never --" Spencer sits back down with a sigh. "You know he's never really had a serious -- a relationship, really, not at all."

"You guys have a serious relationship," Shane says. "All of you guys."

"He's hung up on me a lot," Spencer says. "And you know it's different."

"It's not that different," Haley says. "He left home, right? He thought he had to give up on his family to have the band. And they let him."

Spencer reaches over and takes her other hand. Shane doesn't know anything about them, not really, about how Haley left home and who let her go.

"They let him leave," she says, "and even though they let him come back or whatever, he knows, he must know they'd let him leave again before they, like, dealt with actual reality."

"Oh," Shane says.

Haley leans in and kisses his cheek. "The sheets on the spare bed are clean, right?" she asks Spencer and he nods.

Shane stands up. "Maybe I should --" but Spencer shakes his head.

"Ryan's just going to smoke Brendon out with his extra-special-occasion weed and give him the all you need is love speech."

"The -- really?"

"It has a perfect success rate," Haley says, and Spencer laughs, loose and light.

"Stay," Spencer says. "I'll finish making dinner and Haley can tell you the whole story. You can go home tomorrow."

++

Ryan calls mid-afternoon. "He just left," Spencer says. Shane cracks the window in the car so Dylan can poke her nose out on the drive home. He parks next to Brendon and drops his bag on the couch.

Brendon is lying on their bed. He's curled up on his side, eyes open, and he blinks slowly when Shane comes in, like maybe he doesn't believe it.

"Hey," Shane says, and swallows past the tightness in his throat. He perches on the edge of the bed, resting his weight on one arm. Brendon reaches out and puts his hand over Shane's briefly before slowly rolling onto his back and sitting up.

"I didn't really think you'd come back," Brendon says, and he sounds so openly relieved Shane swears he can feel his heart thud in his chest.

"I hear all you need is love." He smiles because it's easy to say, easier than he'd thought, and because it makes Brendon laugh, melodic.

"My band likes you better."

"No," Shane says. "They know you better." And they let Shane in anyway, gave him a map and the keys and their blessing. He's still not sure what he did to deserve that.

"It's not about them," Brendon says.

Shane says, "I know," though he's not sure what it is about, exactly, now that they're actually talking about it.

"I didn't want to prove them all right," Brendon says, and it's suddenly angrier, more determined. "All the rest of them. You know -- you  _know_  what everyone thinks already. What they all say about me, about all of us. And it's not -- it's not that easy, or whatever. It's not that simple. But they'll think they're right anyway. They'll think they've been right all along, that I've been hiding something, or sitting around hating myself." He looks up at Shane, and his voice is wounded when he continues. "I don't, you know."

"I don't think you hate yourself," Shane says.

That's not it at all. Brendon's never guarded in that way, never takes anything back or punishes himself or anyone around him for what he's wanted and gotten.

"I think maybe you want too much for everyone to like you, though," Shane says.

Brendon scrunches his face up. "Who doesn't?"

"Who gives a fuck if they do?"

"I do, apparently. According to you."

Shane hates arguing, especially like this, around and around about shit that's never going to change, that's just who they are to start off with. He pulls his legs up on the bed, crossing them and leaning back against the headboard. " _I_  like you," he says.

After a long while, Brendon says, "Yeah?" His voice is so soft Shane has to lean in to hear it. "Still?" he asks.

"Yeah, still," Shane says. "And, like, way too fucking much to act like I don't. I don't even know how to do that."

Brendon whispers, "You like me," and Shane has to kiss him.

"Yeah," Shane says when they pull back, and he puts an arm around Brendon, pulling him closer. They sit like that for a while. The house is only noisy in its normal ways, Dylan running around, a weed whacker next door, the kids down the street shrieking and laughing.

"So everyone knows," Brendon breathes out, and seems to lose an inch, shoulders hunched down. He pulls his knees up to his chin.

"I think they've figured it out, yeah."

"And I'm supposed to believe nobody cares."

"I didn't say that." Shane walks his fingers along Brendon's arm. "But I don't think anyone's upset, no."

"So what difference does it make, anyway, if everyone knows."

"Because," Shane says. "When you act like  _you_  don't, it makes me look like an idiot."

"You're not an idiot."

"And neither are you. But we both feel pretty fucking stupid right now, don't we?"

Brendon huffs out something that sounds reluctant agreement.

"You don't have to tell people, not for me," Shane clarifies, and Brendon looks up in surprise. "Really, I don't even give a shit if you tell your parents. You don't owe them or anyone else an explanation. I don't really want to tell my parents, and you know they probably wouldn't even blink. And look, if you want to -- if you want to bring home girls, or --"

"I don't, that's --"

"It's okay if you do," Shane says. "I mean, I don't know, it sounds okay."

"Just okay," Brendon smirks, and Shane elbows him in the ribs.

"I don't know what we're doing either, okay."

"I know," Brendon says.

"But I don't care about all that, about other -- if you'll just admit it's, that we're --"

"We're together," Brendon says.

Shane exhales. His stomach bottoms out. "Yeah," he says. He feels exhausted and exhilarated and terrified and happy. Just like Brendon looks.

Brendon rearranges them so they're lying down, his cheek on Shane's chest. "Let's stay home tonight," he says, and Shane says okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, you know what sounds like a great idea? A fic with an epic amount of Brendon having sex with someone who's not in his band. Oh, in ShanePOV! People will love that. This was half an idea for one scene until R got hold of it and badgered me every day for what came next. Thanks to JB, J, N, Jae, rossetti and sloganeer for helping make that mess into a story. And to disarm_d, who finished first and always makes me look at Brendon from a different angle.
> 
> If you want to see things that way, another story with this same Brendon and Spencer (and Shane, a little) set far in the future, can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/167392).


End file.
